


Silhouettes

by allonsys_girl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom John, Bottom Sherlock Holmes, Chaptered, Cheating, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Infidelity, Episode: s02e02 The Hounds of Baskerville, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Fluff, Foot Jobs, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Drinking, Infidelity, John-centric, Johnlock Fluff, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Minisode: Many Happy Returns, POV John Watson, Parentlock, Rimming, Sad John, Season/Series 02, Top John Watson, Top Sherlock, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-18 17:51:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1437331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsys_girl/pseuds/allonsys_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John find comfort in each other's arms, but as ever with these two, it's not your typical relationship. It's fluffy at the beginning, gets deeply angsty in the middle, gets porny at the end. Tried to cover all my bases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Weight of Your Arms

**Author's Note:**

> This grew out of a head canon of mine that Sherlock would creep into John's bed when they'd had a particularly rough case or just a bad day, and they would take comfort in each other.

A silhouette in a doorway. That’s how it had started. Light from the hallway pouring around wild curls, the swaying fabric of a silk dressing gown. The room had been icy, a cold snap hitting London in mid spring, as often happened. He sat up when he heard the footsteps on the stairs, wondered if he was about to be dragged out into the night to watch Sherlock be clever, not that he ever minded that. 

He was half out of the bed, ready to pull on crumpled jeans and a dirty jumper, when the silhouette slipped into the room and closed the door. The room was pitch black. His eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the loss of the light from the doorway when he felt the dip of the mattress, the rustle of the sheets. His breath caught in his lungs. 

“Sher...are you okay? What are you doing?” His voice came out in a broken whisper, catching on every syllable. Wanting. Wanting this, him, for so long. All the times they might have, could have, but now, on a completely unremarkable night. Rain thrummed against the window. A streetlight popped, John heard the sizzle of the bulb burning. Sherlock slid toward him, nothing but heat and muffled sounds. 

They’d had a terrible week. Two murders of small children, which had disturbed them both. Mrs Hudson had taken a fall and was in hospital. And two days before, John had been hit over the head by a suspect during a chase and been unconscious for several minutes. He had a slight concussion, but nothing more serious than that. Sherlock had fussed over him at first, bringing him tea until there were four cups undrunk sitting on his bedside table, but as everything with Sherlock, his concern burned brightly and briefly. He got bored and left John alone. 

Now here he was in John’s bed, under the same blankets. Knees inches, centimeters, apart. John could hear him breathing.

“Just...shhhhh. I want to stay here. Can I? Can I stay here, John?” So unsure, so easily hurt. John could never say no to him, not ever really, and not when he sounded like this. Something was wrong. 

“Are you alright? What happened?” His hand hovered over Sherlock’s curled form, instinct being to touch him, stroke his back, soothe him. He retracted, clenching it to the top of the blankets. 

“Nothing happened. Just go back to sleep. Please?” Moonlight sifted down over his face, one eye illuminated. He looked tired and frightened. 

He wouldn’t tell John anything. Alright. Just another level of strangeness in this flat, in this life. Fine. John swallowed all his confusion down, working hard against the ache in his chest telling him to reach out and pull Sherlock to him, breathe in his body heat and take his fear away. 

“Goodnight, Sherlock.”

“Goodnight, John.”

When John woke in the morning, of course, Sherlock was pressed to his side, his nose against John’s rib cage, arm slung low over his belly and their legs twisted together. Somehow, John had always known this is how Sherlock would sleep in bed with another person. With him. Which was something he thought about far too often. 

He lay there, Sherlock breathing warm and even against his shirt, and wondered how it would be to wake up like this every morning. Sherlock’s hair soft against his arm as he drifted sleepy fingers across his shoulders and up onto his neck. He would not have dared to touch Sherlock this way yesterday, but there was a line that had been crossed, a defence breached. He allowed his hand to move down, stopping when he reached the gentle curve of the small of his back. 

Sherlock made a snuffling noise, sweet and unmeasured. He nuzzled against John’s ribcage, murmuring unintelligibly. John stilled his hand. He didn’t want to wake him, not yet. He needed more of this, of Sherlock’s soft sounds and warm body. It was unlikely to happen again, whatever spell had overtaken him last night. 

Instead of waking, Sherlock rolled more tightly towards him. John turned, his knee slotting in between Sherlock’s thighs, his arms encircling him snugly. Sherlock’s face rubbed against his chest and he settled again. He couldn’t believe how good this felt. It was peace. Complete peace. All their demons quieted. 

John let himself fall back asleep. 

It was dreamless and sound sleep. They lay there most of the morning. 

Eventually, Sherlock stirred and stretched, and John slowly woke up. He opened his eyes and looked at Sherlock. Sherlock looked steadily back. Was there something to be embarrassed about? The question was in both their eyes. Then John smiled a bit, and Sherlock did too, and that was the end of it. It felt like a natural extension of their closeness, their dependence on each other. 

They got up and went about their day. John made eggs and toast and coffee. He blogged. Sherlock fidgeted and complained, and they got in a row over something stupid that they couldn’t even remember later. Late in the afternoon, Lestrade phoned with a case, and they went. John had Chinese takeaway at 11pm while Sherlock sipped his tea.

That night, John came to Sherlock’s room. He stood in the doorway until Sherlock beckoned him in. He slipped into the sheets, more expensive and soft than his own, and there was no pretense this time. Sherlock held an arm out, and John curled to him as if they’d done this a million times. Sherlock’s hand settled on his waist, and he liked the weight and the heat against his skin. Sherlock’s breath was hot against his forehead, and he could hear his heart thumping right against his ear. He fell asleep more quickly than he had in decades, waking ten hours later flat on his back with Sherlock’s head on his stomach, a circle of saliva on his tee shirt from Sherlock’s open mouth. 

That became their habit. They never talked about it; never questioned it. But they never slept alone again. There was such a comfort in that physical closeness, such a soul-deep feeling of calm, there was no letting go of that. It was akin to therapy; quieting Sherlock’s mind and John’s restless spirit. John would start getting antsy in the evenings, wanting to feel the weight of Sherlock’s head on him, their limbs tangled together. Sometimes he couldn’t wait, and he would announce he was off to bed at a ridiculously early hour. Sherlock always took the hint, slinking into the room fifteen minutes behind John, and coiling his long body around him with a contented sigh.

This wasn’t typical behaviour for flatmates, for friends, and John knew that. He was relatively certain Sherlock did, too. But John, he had always wanted so much more, so much Sherlock wasn’t capable of giving, and this was good. It was fulfilling, even without kissing, or sex, or any kind of romantic relationship at all. It was closeness, a closeness John hadn’t been sure Sherlock would or could want. He did, though. He did. It was enough, for now. 

There was an intimacy between them, borne of sleeping in the same bed every night. The scents of each other’s bodies, musky skin and stale breath, soap and shampoo, were as familiar now as their own. Sherlock knew John favoured a particular tee shirt over any other to wear to bed, and John knew Sherlock liked to sleep in pyjama pants but no shirt at all. They knew nearly every bump and curve and hollow of each other’s bodies, having woken up in every possible configuration of entwined limbs. John knew Sherlock liked having his back stroked before he fell asleep, and Sherlock knew John nearly always woke up on his back, no matter how they went to bed. Sherlock had memorised John’s REM cycles. John knew Sherlock’s feet would always be icy cold, no matter the temperature outside. They knew the exact weight of each other’s arms. They knew the sounds that meant someone was waking up, and how those sounds differed from sleepy mumblings. They knew what it was to wake up with their faces centimeters apart and just look at each other, just look, until it became too intense, and one of them would roll and stretch and break the mood. 

John was sure he could go on like this forever. He’d stopped dating, and he missed sex a bit, but this thing that was happening with Sherlock, whatever it was, he wanted it. He wanted to experience every second of it, and he wanted Sherlock to understand that this meant something to him. So, no dates. No girlfriends. Just the two of them, whatever they were. He didn’t need to understand it. For the first time in his life, he was just letting something be, and it was working. 

The nights they spent in Dartmoor while investigating Baskerville, in separate beds, were restless and awful, and made them stroppy with each other. The third night, after two nights of misery and a fight, John climbed into Sherlock’s tiny single bed.

“I can’t. I just can’t.” 

Sherlock opened his arms and gathered him in, even though they were both nearly falling off the mattress, and John had to lay almost completely on top of him to fit. “I know. I can’t either.”

They fell asleep with John’s head on Sherlock’s belly, his body between Sherlock’s legs. His feet hung off the end of the bed, but he didn’t care. Sherlock’s hands were in his hair, and he could hear his heart beating through his aorta. His thighs were warm and soft on either side of John’s torso, and John breathed in deeply, calm for the first time since they’d gotten there, and let himself drift off. 

The first night they were home, they both felt so relieved, they went to bed at 8pm and slept until 10am. When they finally woke, they found they were holding hands, fingers twisted together on John’s chest. Sherlock smiled and shrugged, and John felt a warm certainty spread through him. This was right. This was real. Maybe they were doing it differently than other people, but who cares? They’d get there eventually.

John had never felt more certain about anything in his life. They were taking it extremely slow, but that was alright. They belonged to each other, their whole lives were each other. This was the love of his life. He had no doubt. 

They would be together forever. Longer than forever. 

***

“No one could be that clever.”

“You could.”

John couldn’t believe what he was seeing, what was happening. Why was this happening?

“This phone call, it’s my note. Isn’t that what people do?”

“SHERLOCK!” 

Blood. Blood on the pavement. No pulse. 

He knew the exact weight of Sherlock’s arm across his chest. 

They were going to be together forever. 

“My friend, that’s my friend. Please.” 

John couldn’t sleep in bed after Sherlock died. He slept curled in Sherlock’s chair, crying silently into the leather, half awake all night. Blood on the pavement. 

Sherlock’s arm across his chest, his nose against his neck. 

They were going to be together forever. 

John moved out of the flat, left everything behind. The only way he slept anymore was to drink until he blacked out. 

Sherlock’s name was always on his lips when he awoke.


	2. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is lost without Sherlock, but when Sherlock returns, will they be able to find each other again?

John drifted. Nothing felt real. 

In anxious dreams, he could smell Sherlock’s hair, he could feel his hand resting heavy and still on his ribcage. Then he was screaming Sherlock’s name, holding his hand out to him in silent horror. Blood on the pavement. Sherlock on the pavement. Sherlock’s fingers twisted in his own, warm in bed. Their hands covered in blood. 

In the beginning, he would wake up with a shout, crying and shaking. After a few months, the tears didn’t come anymore. Instead came a dull emptiness that reduced him to sitting on the sofa for days on end, drinking and staring at the wall. He didn’t even know if he slept anymore. It all seemed about the same. Night came and went, the shadows on the wall moved. Sherlock was still dead. 

He didn’t know how to do this. How to be without him. 

Greg came over. He sat with him, watched telly, football matches and crap soaps. He brought him takeaways and milk and bread. He talked to him, about Scotland Yard, about his kids, about nothing at all. John never answered. Greg didn’t seem to mind. He left when it got ridiculously late, patted John’s shoulder, and came again the next day.

Mrs Hudson never came by. Neither did Molly or Mycroft or anyone else that reminded him of Sherlock. He was grateful for it, as much as he could be grateful for anything. He couldn’t bear a living person, standing there breathing, blood pumping in their veins, fumbling at comfort, when Sherlock was in the ground. Sherlock had been more alive than anyone he’d ever known, more awake. He had been so awake to the world, so bright and brilliant. The world was wrong without him. 

He lived off his army pension. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t do anything. If Greg didn’t bring food, he didn’t eat. It didn’t matter. 

Greg brought a box of Sherlock’s things. He wanted it, he didn’t want it. He couldn’t stand to look at anything. He had to. He watched the video Sherlock had made for his birthday last year. He didn’t cry, though he wanted to. 

All though that godawful party, all he could think about was Sherlock’s belly pressed against his back, moving in and out as he breathed, and the feeling of Sherlock’s face against his neck. When he got home, they went to bed, and Sherlock spooned up behind him with his arm over his waist, whispered ‘Happy Birthday, John’ softly against his ear as they fell asleep. 

That memory kept him up all night after Greg left. The weight of Sherlock’s arm over him. His breath in his hair. It was suffocating to know he would never feel those again. 

Months went by. He let his beard grow in. It helped to see a different face in the mirror. 

Greg invited him to a pub night. To his own surprise, he accepted. Someone told a joke. He laughed, and then felt disgusted and guilty. How could he laugh when Sherlock was rotting away in the ground? How could he have done that? He excused himself and was able to hold the sobs in until he got outside the pub. He stumbled into the alleyway and backed against the wall, sobbing like he hadn’t done in months, until he was gagging and heaving. 

He went home and watched the birthday video over and over. Drank scotch straight out of the bottle, his chest constricted with grief until he felt like he couldn’t get a breath. He fell asleep murmuring ‘I miss you I miss you I miss you.’

The next morning, Greg came by and made him get up. He took him to breakfast and refused to hear anymore of John’s excuses. “It’s been thirteen months, John. You have got to pull yourself out of this. Sherlock wouldn’t want you to be doing this to yourself.”

That actually made him laugh. “Yes, he would. He’d want me to mourn him forever, the selfish little shit.”

Greg laughed too. “Okay, maybe he would, but you’ve got to stop, John, really. You’re drinking yourself to death, mate. You’ve lost two stone, you must’ve. You’re a wreck. Look, I’ve got a friend who runs a small surgery, he’s looking for a new partner. Clean yourself up and go talk to him. I told him you need a job, and that you’re a good doctor. He’s willing to hire you on the spot. Just, please. I hate to see you like this.”

John blinked back tears. Rain slid in lazy rivulets down the restaurant window, a dreary, cold day for June. The jumper he was wearing was a blue striped one that Sherlock had liked. He used to lay it out on the bed without saying anything, and John would always smile when he emerged from the shower and saw it laying there. He would put it on, and Sherlock’s eyes would crinkle up in that way that only John got to see. 

Greg was right. He was drowning. He was drowning in grief, and it would never get any better this way. He pushed his uneaten food around with his fork. “Alright. I’ll go.”

Greg grinned, white teeth and laugh lines, and John tried to feel something.

***

He got the job. He shaved off the beard, got a haircut. He bought an alarm clock. 

It was rote and it was nothing special, but it was a routine, and it worked. He started keeping food in the fridge, bought a few decorations for the tiny flat. He bought a picture frame and put in it one of the few pictures of himself and Sherlock that he had. He set it beside the bed, and was able to look at it without feeling like his chest was caving in. 

There was a nurse at the surgery. Mary. Blonde, pretty, she flirted with him. At first he hated it, ignored it, thought about Sherlock’s curls against his arm whenever she talked. But she was sweet, funny, and a bit relentless, and eventually he agreed to dinner. He put on his date clothes, combed his hair, sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the picture. “I love you. I will always love you,” He said aloud, having to hear himself say it, “But you’re gone, and I just...I need someone, Sherlock, I do. I can’t be alone forever.”

She made him laugh. On their third date, she invited him up, and he declined. She didn’t seem to take offence, and invited him up again on their fifth date. He breathed deep, said a silent apology to Sherlock, and accepted. 

After that, it got easier. It moved quickly. They'd both been lonely, John reasoned. They went shopping on the weekends, did coupley things like going to museums and the cinema. John loved her, as much as he was able. He moved out of his miserable little bedsit and into her flat, and she didn’t object when the picture of him and Sherlock went on the bedside table. 

He still dreamt of Sherlock. Some mornings, in the space between sleeping and waking, he thought it was Sherlock’s hand on his arm and there was such an emptiness when his eyes opened to blonde straight hair instead of black curls. He tried to hide the emptiness from her, the disappointment, but he couldn’t help talking about Sherlock, their life together. He wondered if Mary felt like that was all he ever talked about. 

Why not marry her? He hardly wanted to have to date again, and she clearly wanted to get married. He loved her. He did. He couldn’t love anyone the way he had loved Sherlock, but this was good, with Mary. He told her to wear something posh, they were going out for a nice dinner. Flutterings of nervous happiness danced in his stomach. Yes, this was good. 

***

He stared and stared. He couldn’t control what his face was doing, every emotion he’d ever had in his life coursing through him like fire racing down a trail of petrol. Sherlock. Standing in front of him, with an idiotic smile on his face, like this was all some grand joke. Sherlock. Alive. Breathing. Right in front of him. 

“You’re him. Oh god, you’re him.” Mary was saying something, but he couldn’t quite make himself understand what it was. 

He wanted to murder him. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to be sick. 

He settled for knocking him to the ground, half choking, half hugging him. They were chucked out of the restaurant, of course. He couldn’t stop hitting him. He loathed him. He loved him. 

Sherlock wouldn’t tell him anything, wouldn’t help him to understand. He was so blaise, so uncomprehending of what John had been through. John couldn’t understand who this was, this person who was teasing him and mocking his agony and his grief and telling him it was his fault he wasn’t told because he wouldn’t have been able to keep quiet.

How could this be the same person whose soft hollows and sharp bones had surrounded him as he slept, whose breath he had shared in the grey mornings when neither of them wanted to disentangle their limbs from the other’s, whose fingers had twisted in his hair and slipped down over his ears as his drifted off? How could it be the same person who had rested his leg against John’s as they watched telly and drank their morning coffee, had made him laugh until he couldn’t breathe, had made him feel like there was no one in the world who had ever loved or needed him more?

Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He couldn’t even look at him anymore. He hailed a cab, called out to Mary, his insides roiling with emotions he didn’t even know how to name. 

Mary said she liked him. John didn’t like the tone in her voice, as if she and Sherlock were in on a little joke together. Nothing about this was funny in the least. John watched the lights whiz by, the couples walking down the street holding hands, and wanted to punch his hand into a brick wall until it was broken and bloody. He wanted to bleed this feeling right out of him. 

When he got home, the picture went in a drawer. He couldn’t talk to him. He couldn’t stand not talking to him. He couldn’t sleep, laying there biting back tears as he went over what felt like every single second of their life together, Sherlock’s face swimming in his mind’s eye. How could he have done this? He couldn’t get over the betrayal, how Sherlock hadn’t trusted him. 

Sherlock texted. John erased them. They didn’t speak. John couldn’t eat, his stomach hurt all the time. 

Finally he decided to go see him. Hemmed and hawed outside Baker Street, pacing the sidewalk. A harsh bump from behind knocked him off balance. “Excuse you.”

Then there was a hand on him, a sharp sticking pain in his neck, and he was on the ground. Cold, everything was cold. He tried to call out to Sherlock, but his mouth wouldn’t form the right sounds. Nothing seemed to be working properly.

Blackness. 

When he came to, he was in a bonfire. 

***

Sherlock pulled him out, screaming his name in a panic. John forgot he was supposed to be angry at him, so relieved to see his face hovering there and feel his hand on his face. It had been so long, so long since he’d touched him like this. For a moment, he couldn’t even be bothered to be upset that he’d almost died. 

He never even noticed Mary was there at all. 

***

“How are you feeling?”

“A bit...smoked.” John eyed Sherlock warily. He still had absolutely no idea why he’d been drugged, kidnapped, and thrown in a bonfire, but he was pretty sure it had something to do with Sherlock being here. 

Sherlock smiled at him. Softly. Sadly. His eyes were so open, so gentle. 

John wanted to touch him. Desperately. He just couldn’t stay angry with him. It took effort, far too much effort. He still loved him more than anyone. Why he’d ever entertained the thought that he could stand to be in a world with Sherlock Holmes in it and not talk to him, he had no idea. It wasn’t possible. He was still grieving for him. The pain of that wouldn’t ever completely dissipate, not even with the living, breathing man right here in front of him.

It wouldn’t be cheating on Mary, not really. It wasn’t sex. It was just comfort. 

He stood up, and Sherlock backed up. Christ, Sherlock was fucking afraid of him. He had HIT him, why had he done that? John was seized by the need to fix what was broken between them. They couldn’t be this way, not after he’d already lost him once. 

He took Sherlock’s hand, watched as their fingers laced together, for the first time in two years. It felt like coming home from a long weary journey. Their eyes met, Sherlock’s surprised and questioning. John just didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t have the language to make Sherlock understand what he’d been through, how angry he still was, and the depth with which he still loved him. 

“I know. I know. It’s, everything is strange and wrong. But, just...can we? Can we, like we used to?” A tug on his hand; this way, back here in this bedroom. Where we found each other. Let’s find each other again. 

Sherlock’s head tilted to the side, confused. Then his lips parted, formed a small ‘O’. John thought his eyes were a bit wet. They were certainly surprised and pleased.

“Yes, John. I would like that very much.”

They fell silent. John pulled Sherlock into the room, closed the door. It was windy out, howling around the corners of the building and rattling the panes in the Sherlock’s bedroom window. The late afternoon light was grey. They didn’t bother to turn on a light. John shucked off everything except his tee shirt and pants, and Sherlock removed his shirt too. This was so easy. This was so right. John didn’t even have the ability to feel guilty.

John slipped in first, and held his arms out to Sherlock. “Come here.”

Sherlock climbed in beside him, and when his head settled on John’s chest, he thought he might weep from the relief of it. This was all he’d been thinking about for two years. Sherlock sighed, his body relaxing against John’s, sinking into him. Their legs fitted together, John turning so he could wrap both arms around Sherlock. He stroked up Sherlock’s back, fingers discovering new scars. Lots of them. 

He looked down at Sherlock, alarmed. Sherlock’s eyes met his, tender and timid. 

“Oh, Sherlock. What happened?” John said in a hush, his fingertips hypnotically tracing the raised skin.

Sherlock closed his eyes, tipped his head forward into John’s neck. “Many things. Many things that I don’t want to talk about. Can we just...do this? Please.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” John didn’t ask him about the scars again, but he could feel them, all over his back and his chest, and it made him nauseous. John was a military man. He knew what caused scars like these. Sherlock had been tortured. 

Sherlock had been tortured and god knows what else while he was gone, and what did John do when he came home? He hit him. He hit him and shouted. John hated himself in that moment. 

He tightened his arms around Sherlock. Sherlock’s hand rubbed over his belly, his chest, over his shoulder, settled on his hip. John breathed in deeply, put one hand in Sherlock’s hair. He could smell Sherlock’s shampoo, and the slightly campfire smell that still clung to his own skin. Sherlock nosed into his neck, breathing in, and rubbed his foot over John’s calf. 

The light in the room was fading. They didn’t move, completely entwined, looking more like one person than two. Sherlock’s breathing slowed, became regular and quiet. John tucked his face down to look at him, and he seemed asleep. 

He pressed his lips to the top of Sherlock’s head. He whispered, “I’m so sorry, Sherlock. I missed you so much.”

Sherlock wasn’t asleep. When he spoke, his breath ghosted over John’s skin. “Me too, John. Both.”

John didn’t care that he’d heard. He didn’t even think about the kiss, though it was the first time he’d done that. He felt himself drifting off, calm and peaceful for the first time in two years. Sherlock snuggled closer, tucked his hands into John’s chest and sighed. 

When Mary called to find out where he was, he didn’t even hear the phone.


	3. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is still getting married, but the love between himself and Sherlock can't be ignored.

When they’d woken up, after midnight, they lay there entwined, bellies pressed together, feeling each other breathe. Silently, Sherlock slid his hands under John’s shirt, and John sucked in a deep shuddering breath but didn’t stop him. Sherlock just rested them, warm and solid, against John’s chest. After a few minutes, John sat up and took his shirt off. Permission. Then Sherlock’s hands had been all over John’s torso and arms, just touching him, taking him in. Sherlock’s hands were pure electricity. John was shivering. 

John ran a hand up Sherlock’s already bare chest, feeling the ripple and ridge of each scar. He trailed his fingers over Sherlock’s neck, and laid them against his face. He ran a thumb over Sherlock’s eyebrow, down the curve of his eye socket, brushed it over his lashes. 

“I missed you.” Which was a completely inadequate expression of what he’d been through while Sherlock was dead, but it was all he could get out. 

“You’re all I thought about while I was gone.” Sherlock whispered, his voice so heavy with emotion that it cracked. 

Sherlock skidded his hands down to the small of John’s back, pulled himself closer. His breath against John’s face. John wanted so badly to kiss him, to feel the softness of his mouth, the scrape of his stubble, the slip of his tongue between his lips. Their noses bumped.

“John.” Sherlock’s voice held both a warning and an invitation. His fingers tightened against John’s skin, digging into his back.

“Sherlock. What are we doing?” John nudged his nose against Sherlock’s, trying to will away the tingling spreading through the entire lower half of his body. This was new. This was different. He’d slept with every part of Sherlock pressed against him, and never had it felt this electric. He wanted to roll him over, pin him to the mattress. 

Sherlock trailed his fingers up John’s spine, making him shudder. “What do you think we’re doing?”

This felt like home. Sherlock’s skin, his voice soft in his ear. A hundred mornings of waking up with Sherlock’s hands on him, of their hips bumping in the loo while they brushed their teeth, Sherlock’s head in his lap while they watched telly flashed through John’s mind. This was where he belonged. 

Sherlock’s tongue darted out, just barely making contact with John’s upper lip. His whisper was hoarse and deep. “Stay tonight. Stay, John. Please.”

“Oh, god, fuck, I want to. I do, so badly, but Sherlock. Fuck. I’m getting married. You and I, we don’t even know each other anymore.” Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. 

“We would always know each other. It wouldn’t matter if I hadn’t seen you for two years or twenty. We would always know each other, John.” Sherlock purred, his fingertips tracing lines of heat all over John’s chest. 

“You’re right, you’re right. God, I just…I shouldn’t…” He could almost forget the last two years. In that moment, Sherlock’s body against his, in their bed, it was as if no time had passed. Mary seemed a figment. Nothing was as real as this, Sherlock’s breath and his body and his mind, burning so brightly that John felt drawn to all of them like a moth to a light.

“John.” Sherlock said his name like an invocation, as if it were the most sacred name, his breath falling over John’s lips. 

Breathing hard, John surged forward, his hand coming up into Sherlock’s hair, and kissed him. Sherlock’s mouth was warm, so warm. A trill of desire spiraled down John’s neck. God, he’d been waiting for this for years. Sherlock made a surprised little gasp, but melted into John’s embrace, and they kissed desperately, all the grief and longing and sadness of the last two years pouring out of them. 

Only when John was panting over top of Sherlock, kissing his neck hungrily as Sherlock scratched his fingernails up and down John’s back, did realisation set in. They weren’t going to stop. And John was getting married. He pulled his lips from Sherlock’s skin and rested his forehead in the curve of his shoulder, trying to get his breath. “We have to stop, we have to stop...Sherlock. We have to stop.”

“Why do we? You love me.” Sherlock’s hand wandered down John’s stomach, and John caught it and pushed it away. 

“I do, but it’s not that simple.”

Sherlock scrambled out from underneath him, angry and hurt. “It used to be.”

“We never did this before.”

“We would have, eventually.” Sherlock’s voice was raw with emotion. 

“I don’t want to hurt you. It’s just, everything’s so confused. I don’t know what I’m doing. Please, Sherlock.” John tried to touch him, but he recoiled. 

“Go home, John. Just...leave.” Sherlock curled up on himself, knees in his chest, and turned away from John. “Go back to her.”

John sat there, feeling defeated and miserable. “I don’t know how to not hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. I missed you every day.”

“I’ll tell you how not to hurt me. Come home.” Sherlock had mumbled, his face between his bent knees. 

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because. I don’t know. I just can’t.” John picked up his clothes and hovered at the edge of the room. “I thought you were dead, Sherlock. For two years. I can’t just...it’s not so easy for me.”

Sherlock rolled over and covered himself with the blanket. “How long are you going to punish me for this?”

“I’m not punishing you. I’m...I’m confused. Fuck, Sherlock, why can’t you understand?”

Sherlock wouldn’t answer. After long minutes of silence, John finally left, feeling hollow and sick. 

He walked back to his house in the suburbs with Mary, which took him most of the night. When he’d stumbled in, exhausted and freezing, she looked angry initially, but took in his condition, and fussed over him instead of yelling. She made him tea and toast. Sent him to bed. He called out of work, blamed it on the bonfire incident. Really, he just wanted to lay in bed and think about Sherlock all day. 

His phone buzzed around noon. 

I know I hurt you. It was never my intent. SH

I know I hurt you, too. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what’s going on right now. 

You’re getting married. That’s what’s going on. SH

I love you. You know that.

Yes. SH

I’m sorry. 

I know. SH

Are we going to be okay?

Yes. SH

I can’t lose you again.

I know. SH

After that, they made an effort to act more like friends. John called Sherlock “mate” a few times, which made both of them cringe. 

John was still getting married. He wasn’t even sure precisely why. Half of him desperately wanted to leave Mary, return to Baker Street, recapture what they’d had before. He knew it wouldn’t be - couldn’t be - that simple. They were both different people now than they had been two years ago. What they’d had was unique, perfect, but too many things were broken. They were broken. 

John still loved Sherlock. 

John still loved Mary. 

She was supportive. She liked Sherlock, wanted him to come round for dinner, for tea. Sherlock did, sometimes, but the three of them together was awkward. Mary was too jolly, too overt. John and Sherlock were more quiet together. They had their way of being, and Mary’s presence threw it all off balance, as much as she tried not to. John was touched that she tried, but more often than not, John would go to Baker Street instead. They never touched each other. There was too much between them now for that. If they touched each other, they wouldn’t be able to stop.

“Were you together, John?” Mary startled him, half asleep next to her in their bed one night. 

“Who?” 

“Don’t play dumb with me, John Watson. You and Sherlock. Were you, you know? Together?” 

“No. No. We never…” John heard the guilt in his voice.

“Had sex?” Mary’s eyebrow arching was visible even in the dark.

“No. We never did.”

There was a beat of silence. Mary rolled over closer to him, her hand on his bicep. “Did you want to?”

“No. Of course not.” He could not talk to Mary about Sherlock. Sherlock was his. He lived in the deepest part of John, a glowing ember in his soul and his heart and his gut, and he wasn’t to be shared with anyone. Not even the woman he planned to marry. “Good night.”

She didn’t ask again.

***

He didn’t know why he was going through with this. He couldn’t stop thinking about Sherlock, their life together, the feeling of Sherlock’s mouth on his, his body underneath him. His dreams were memories of tea and breakfast, their feet touching under the table, smiling at each other over folded newspapers. He almost called out Sherlock’s name during sex with Mary. He knew he did call it out during his nightmares, because Mary told him he did. 

John asked Sherlock to be the best man at the wedding. He couldn’t imagine anyone else filling that role, but he struggled with it. He was asking the man he loved, the person who was the love of his life, to stand beside him while he married someone else. It seemed cruel, to both himself and Sherlock. 

When he asked him, Sherlock blinked and blinked and blinked, fell silent, stared into space. John said he loved him, in the same sentence with Mary. He tried to cushion the blow. He tried to make it a joke. 

All the blood drained from Sherlock’s face when John called him his best friend. 

“I’m your best friend?” Sherlock left the “and that’s it?” unspoken.

“Yeah, of course you’re my best friend.” John plastered a smile on his face, tried to swallow down the memories surging up, of soft skin under his fingers and Sherlock’s hand on his waist, of their lips against each other, and the crackling heat between their bodies. 

Sherlock looked furious and stunned. 

Eventually, he agreed. 

Sherlock helped them plan the wedding. He tasted cakes and wines and folded napkins. He got friendlier with Mary, on the surface, anyway. John would get jealous. Not of Sherlock, but of Mary. He couldn’t bear anyone to be close to Sherlock other than himself. It was selfish, and hypocritical, considering that he was the one marrying someone else...but he couldn’t help it. Sherlock was his, and his alone.

“You don’t have to be so friendly.” John pulled him into the kitchen at Baker Street one afternoon, while the three of them were tasting different dinner options, numbered boxes spread out across the floor. 

“What would you rather have me do? Be spiteful and rude? Jealous? Believe me, I am more than capable of that.” He hissed, his mouth tight.

John grabbed cups out of the cabinet. They were supposed to be getting drinks to go with the food. 

“No, just...I don’t know. I feel like you two are the ones getting married.” John found an open bottle of wine in the fridge, splashed some messily into the cups. 

“Or would you rather have me do this?” Sherlock slid up behind John, mouthed wetly at the nape of his neck. Slid his hands around his waist.

John made a far too loud grunt, his body responding more quickly than he could have imagined possible. He spun around, boxed against the counter by Sherlock’s arms. “Sherlock, stop it.”

“You stop it. I’m doing this for you. It’s for you, John.” Sherlock’s eyes were on fire, his nostrils flaring. “Don’t you dare stand there and reprimand me. I’m going through with this ordeal because you want me to.”

Biting back the urge to smooth Sherlock’s curls away from his forehead, he clenched his fists at his sides. “I’m sorry. I won’t say that again.”

“Don’t.” Sherlock whirled away from him and stalked into the sitting room. 

He leaned back against the counter and tried to breathe normally. This was the worst idea he’d ever had. 

***

John had guilt. He should have known. If he’d been better, smarter, he would have known, and he would have found him. Sherlock wouldn’t have gone through torture and misery and god knows what for two years, if John hadn’t failed him. He failed to see through the faked death, he failed to be smart and good enough for Sherlock to trust him, and he failed to protect the person he loved most in the world from being tortured. 

Tortured. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. The guilt was crushing sometimes.

Sherlock always said he was an idiot, and now he often felt like one. 

He paced. In the dead of the night, Mary breathing peacefully beside him, he would have to get up, move, think. He paced a rut in the floor of their sitting room, running over in his mind all the reasons Sherlock couldn’t tell him, trying to justify it. It never felt right. He just felt that somehow, he hadn’t been good enough. That if he’d just done something differently, he’d have been able to save them both two years of misery. He knew he’d never forgive himself. Never. 

He didn’t even deserve Sherlock. 

***

Sherlock taught him to dance. 

John had mentioned one evening, over a pile of casefiles and coffee, that he needed to learn how to dance for the wedding reception. Sherlock was standing at the evidence wall, hands on his hips. Without turning around, he murmured, “I can teach you. I’m an excellent dancer.”

John laughed.

Sherlock turned then, looking miffed. “I am. I’m not joking.”

John shook his head, both delighted and confounded by the idea of Sherlock being an excellent dancer. He’d never seen him so much as move his head in time to a song, unless he was playing his violin. 

“I’ve never seen you dance, Sherlock.”

“You never gave me an opportunity. I’ll teach you.” Sherlock turned back to the evidence wall, the decision having been made. 

John watched him, his slim hips, broad shoulders. He looked like a dancer. John wondered, not for the first time, what else he didn’t know about Sherlock. What else he hadn’t shared with him. 

***

The result of the dancing lessons was inevitable. Alone, in the home they’d shared, their bodies moving against each other. There was no other way it could have gone. John knew what would happen the moment their hands touched.

The first lesson ended with Sherlock pressed back into the sofa, John’s head between his legs, clutching his hips as he thrust up into John’s mouth. 

The second lesson, Sherlock backed John against the evidence wall, papers floating down around them as they rutted and gasped against each other. After, John kissed Sherlock’s chin and throat and eyelids, and stroked his stomach. “I love you.”

“I know.” Sherlock’s voice trembled. He tucked his face in John’s shoulder, and they leaned against the wall, just holding each other, until John’s phone buzzed with a text from Mary, reminding him to come home for dinner.

The third lesson, they forgot to lock the door, and Mrs Hudson walked in on John with his arms wrapped tightly around Sherlock’s neck, Sherlock’s hands resting on his arse, lips pressed together in the middle of the sitting room. 

“Oh!” 

They broke apart, jumping away from each other, and turned. Mrs Hudson stood in the doorway, her hand over her mouth. They all stared at each other. Mrs Hudson turned around and closed the door without saying a word. She never mentioned it. 

The fourth lesson, John went into the kitchen to get a glass of water and Sherlock pressed him up against the counter, kissing and biting at each other until they were both frantic. They stumbled into the bedroom, taking turns pinning each other to the mattress, nothing but rolling hips and mouths and need, finally sinking into each other’s arms well after midnight. John texted Mary and told her he was too tired to make it home, would be sleeping on the couch at 221B.

Sherlock kissed him, and John brushed his hair from his forehead. They settled together, sticky and hot, and not caring at all. Their bodies fit together as perfectly as they ever had, John’s head in the hollow of Sherlock’s neck and collarbone, Sherlock’s arm the exact right length to lay a hand on John’s bare hip.

“I thought about this the whole time you were gone. Your arm. The weight of your arm over me.” John murmured sleepily. “I thought I’d never feel it again.”

“I was always coming back to you, John. I would always find you.” Sherlock tightened his arm around him, and they allowed themselves to fall asleep. John woke up feeling rested as he hadn’t since the last time they’d shared a bed, after the Guy Fawkes incident. 

Sherlock slept on, and John just lay there, watching him breathe, the flutter of his eyelashes. He’d never watched Mary sleeping. He didn’t know what he was doing. 

The fifth lesson, they abandoned all pretense, and just went to bed. After, they lay sweating and breathless, Sherlock on his stomach with his head on his folded arms. John propped himself up on one elbow, traced the scars on Sherlock’s back with his index finger. 

“Can you tell me what happened?” John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s shoulder, breathing in the smell of him after sex, the heat and the tang of his sweat. 

“Why do you need to know?” 

“Because it’s you. Because...I should have been there. I should never have let this happen to you.” John bit his lip hard, to stop the tears prickling at his eyes. “Because I let you down, and I need to know how badly.”

Sherlock turned, sat up, grabbed John’s head between his hands. “You listen to me, John. You did not let me down. You did not. Don’t say that.”

John put his hands over Sherlock’s, and looked up into his eyes. “I feel like I’m always letting you down.”

“You’re the best person I’ve ever known, John Watson.”

“That’s not true at all.” John laughed bitterly.

“Yes it is.” Sherlock swooped down and kissed him fiercely, pressing him back into the pillows. 

As Sherlock curled to him a few minutes later, his nose in his ribs, John thought again that he didn’t deserve Sherlock. He didn’t deserve Mary, either. He couldn’t stop himself from being with Sherlock, but he was terrified to let himself trust him fully again. To let go of Mary, safe, stable Mary, and commit to living life with Sherlock again. 

For the first time in his life, he thought of himself as a coward. 

***

Sherlock planned the stag night. He didn’t invite anyone at all. John wanted it that way, just the two of them. They drank too much too quickly. John’s fault - he added shots to all their drinks. He wanted to get mind-numbingly drunk.They stumbled back to Baker Street, laughing and leaning on each other, couldn’t make it up the steps. They collapsed side by side, squeezed together uncomfortably between the railing and the wall. When Mrs Hudson found them and woke them, they crawled up to the flat, barely upright. 

They decided to play Guess Who I Am?, Sherlock digging out some cigarette papers to write on. They flopped heavily into their chairs, glasses of scotch in their hands, laughing and slurring. John couldn’t take his eyes off of Sherlock. He was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

At some point, John slipped off his chair, and his hand ended up on Sherlock’s knee. Not surprising. He knew how this night would go. 

“I don’t mind.” John was staggeringly drunk. They both were. 

“Any time.” Sherlock grinned at him.

John’s eyes fell on those always too tight trousers, pulled taut across Sherlock’s hips. He rocked back into his own chair, stretched his legs out and put his socked feet on Sherlock’s chair. Their eyes met. John could feel the heat radiating out of his. Sherlock licked his lips. 

John slid his foot from where it rested against the chair, nudged Sherlock’s leg. Sherlock understood what John wanted, let his legs fall open. John slid his foot slowly up the inside of Sherlock’s thigh. He shuddered, his head falling back. With the tip of his toe, John stroked up Sherlock’s length once, barely making contact. 

“Oooooh. Oh John.” Sherlock arched up into the touch, shifting his hips closer.

John held his breath. Laid his foot flat against Sherlock’s erection and pushed.

Sherlock let out a whine that sent tremors through John, made him clench his legs together to try and alleviate the growing throb between them. Seeing Sherlock like this never lost its beauty, its wonder. He’d never been so entranced by watching someone during sex. He’d rather watch Sherlock, concentrate on him, than come himself. 

Now he stroked him in earnest, flexing his toes around him, and tucking the top of his foot under his arse before bringing it swiftly sliding up the entire length again. Sherlock was almost perfectly still, watching John’s foot on him, his muscles trembling. He dug his fingers into the armrests, shoulders clenching up towards his ears. Long tremulous exhale, the end a high pitched moan.

“Come like this. Can you? Can you come like this, Sherlock?”

He nodded shakily.

“Good.” He pushed and rounded his foot, grinding harder, feeling the entire length of Sherlock’s erection against his foot. He ignored his own. Sherlock, Sherlock was all that mattered. He rubbed his foot against him in a circle, heel against his testicles.

Sherlock gasped and went still. John laid his foot flat against him and pressed. His hips jerked forward once, twice, and then he let out a stuttering breath and melted back into the chair. His head rolled on his neck, face hot and red.

John slowly pulled his foot away, and then knelt on the floor between Sherlock’s legs. He wanted to touch him, feel him breathing against his ear. He wrapped his arms around his waist and held on, head on his stomach. Sherlock moved one hand to the back of his head and massaged it gently. 

“I don’t know how to not be with you, Sherlock. It’s like being without a part of myself.”

“Yes, John.” Sherlock breathed out, still shivering. “That is exactly what it’s like.”

“I don’t want to stop.”

“You’re getting married in two days.”

John didn’t respond, just turned his face and kissed Sherlock through his shirt, worked his way up his chest until their lips met. “I can’t stop. I love you more than anything.”

Sherlock brushed his lips back and forth over John’s. “I hate you sometimes.”

A nervous sob rose up in John’s throat. He swallowed it down and hugged Sherlock tightly to him. “I know.”

***

The wedding was beautiful. The wedding was a disaster. 

Sherlock’s speech was gorgeous and heartfelt and made John cry. When he hugged him, an arm around his neck, and his lips at his ear, he whispered, “I love you so much.”

Sherlock didn’t say anything. 

John sat back down and Mary looked at him with a wary suspicion crossing her face before she smiled. John felt for the hundredth time that day that he was marrying the wrong person. 

It was chaos after that, a murderer somehow posing as a photographer, John’s ex-commander James Sholto the intended victim. Sherlock was slow to figure it out, John was yelling at him in the hallway outside Sholto’s room. “Solve it!” 

Sherlock’s mouth worked and worked. John thought for a moment he was going to cry. But he didn’t. He solved it, fixed it, as he always did. 

John wondered later how he’d ever thought that he and Sherlock would get through even a wedding without a crime occurring. 

As things were calming down, the police and emergency having driven off, the whole weddding standing outside watching them go, John saw Sherlock disappearing around the corner of the building. John kissed Mary’s cheek. “I’ll be in momentarily. Just let me go see what Sherlock’s up to.”

Mary looked at him sourly. “I feel like I’m a guest at my own wedding.”

John pretended he had no idea what she was on about, smiled benignly, and walked away. 

He found Sherlock smoking at the back of the building, staring up at the sky and blowing out a long plume of smoke. 

“You look amazing in that tux, you know.” John tried for levity, but Sherlock shot him a piercing glare. 

“You just can’t let me have one moment of peace, can you?”

John felt like he’d been slapped. He fumbled over his words. “I’m...I’m...sorry, I just...are you angry at me?”

Sherlock barked out a bitter laugh. “Are you joking? I can’t believe you sometimes, John. You can be so selfish. You think this will all just be fine, lovely. That you can keep having both of us, that you’ll never have to make a choice. Well, guess what? You just did.”

“No, that’s not how I…”

“Yes. It is. You thought you could have both of us, forever. And I’m telling you that you can’t. You chose Mary, and I’m sure you’ll be very happy. Now can you please just let me have five minutes of peace before I have to return to that horror and play the happy best man?” Sherlock turned his back on John, sucked hard on his cigarette. 

John balled up his fists, jaw working hard. Fuck, they were both angry at him. He went to walk away, but stopped. “You just said the most beautiful things about us.”

“And they were all true.” Sherlock’s voice was flat.

“Now you hate me suddenly? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t hate you, John, you idiot. I love you so much it makes me hate myself. Because I can’t stop, and now you’re lost to me. And I did it. I left. If I hadn’t left, none of this would have happened.”

“I don’t know what to say.” John couldn’t argue with him. It was the truth. 

“Just...go back inside, and I’ll be alright in a few minutes. Please just leave me be.”

John trudged back inside, went to the bar and downed two shots in quick succession before he could face Mary again. He felt like he’d just made the worst decision of his life. 

When Sherlock came back, he’d plastered a smile on his face, so fake John could see right through it. No one else seemed able to. He played a beautiful song he’d composed. He vowed in front of everyone to be there for John and Mary. He made John cry again, with love, and guilt, and shame. He didn’t deserve him. He really didn’t.

He told them Mary was pregnant. John felt like he was going to be sick. Mary looked horrified. They tried to smile at each other, to look happy. He had to touch Sherlock, he had to put their skin together. He clasped Sherlock around the neck, his thumb reaching down into his collar. Sherlock stiffened, their eyes met, and John’s guilt was overwhelming. Sherlock smiled at him, genuinely, and John grinned back with relief. Maybe they would be alright, after all. 

John went to dance with Mary, and when the dance was over, Sherlock was gone. 

He searched for him, texted him, but he didn’t answer. Eventually John gave up and returned to the reception, miserable and aching.

John didn’t see or hear from Sherlock for a month, not until he went searching for a neighbor's son in a drug den, and heard a familiar, "Hello, John. Did you come for me, too?" behind him.


	4. Under the Surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's been married for a month, and miserable every second of it. Sherlock's pretty much disappeared. How will they find their way back to each other?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have only watched HLV once because I can't stand the pain of it. So, I have played fast and loose with the dialogue, and only kept the basic plot outline. At least in the beginning. Then veering rather far off course.

The honeymoon was lackluster. The pregnancy had thrown them, and though they hadn’t confirmed it yet, John had no doubt Sherlock was right. They hadn’t discussed having children, and John wasn’t overly fond of babies. The thought of raising a child with her was oppressive, exhausting. When he did think about the baby, somehow Sherlock was always there, rambling on about infantile reactions to external stimuli and the chemical composition of baby formula. 

He’d never felt so much regret over a decision in his entire life. Everything felt wrong. Mary spent a lot of time reading, and John took long walks by himself. He should never have gone through with this. The moment Sherlock came back, he should have broken it off with Mary. And now there was a baby. He was well and truly trapped.

When they did have sex, all John could think about was Sherlock. Soft curls against his throat, a hard flat stomach, muscles undulating under John’s palm, long lean legs wrapped warm around his hips. Sherlock’s smiling eyes meeting his across the pillow, sweaty curls across his forehead. When they were done, he would have to roll away from her and swallow the lump in his throat, blink away tears. He missed Sherlock like he would miss oxygen. Straining to breathe. Everything hurt. 

He texted Sherlock. Every day. All day. Sherlock never replied. 

“Are you texting Sherlock AGAIN, John?” Mary would ask, her sunglasses tipped down to the end of her nose, blue eyes exasperated. “What on earth do you two have to talk about while we’re on our honeymoon?”

She never imagined it wasn’t a two way conversation. John thought about Irene Adler for the first time in years, Sherlock ignoring her texts. She had such a crush on Sherlock, wanted to own him, understand him. John thought at the time that Sherlock had a crush on her, too, teased him about it while they were falling asleep at night. Sherlock always denied it, burrowing closer to John and wrapping his arms around him. John would laugh, knowing even if he did, Sherlock would never, could never, have real interest in anyone but him. He had a pang of sympathy for her, now knowing how it felt to be utterly ignored by the only person you really wanted to talk to. 

He and Mary went home, to begin their married life. Mary was her normal chattery self, didn’t seem to notice John not responding to her the way he knew he once had. John felt grey. All the colour had been washed out of him, out of his life. He got up, went to work, came home, ate all night until he fell asleep. It was all pointless. All he wanted was Sherlock. 

Sherlock became a constant ache in his chest. A physical pain. 

He ate all the time, gained weight. Food reminded him of Sherlock; all their dinners out, or quiet evenings in the sitting room with Sherlock’s feet in his lap and takeaway containers on the table. Mary started making comments about it. It was always on the tip of his tongue to say Sherlock wouldn’t care, Sherlock always liked him with a little belly. He bit it back, swallowing down his pain. How could Mary not notice? It was as if he was a stand in for a husband, she didn’t even need John. Anyone would do. 

He ignored her, but he didn’t want her to ignore him. He was such a hypocritical bastard. 

He took to biking to work. It cleared his mind, the wind in his face, his legs pumping, sore. Avoiding the silent drive to work with Mary. One afternoon, he swung by Baker Street. He’d been thinking about doing so for weeks, the conversation he and Sherlock would have playing over and over in his mind until he almost felt like it was foregone. He let himself in, leaned his bike up against the wall in the downstairs hallway. 

“Sherlock?” 

He jogged up the creaky stairs, dust motes billowing up around him. No one ever cleaned this house except him. 

The flat was empty. He walked through every room, touching things, brushing his fingertips over Sherlock’s chemistry equipment, his violin case, a stack of his own books that still sat on the end table near the fireplace. The bedroom was filled with afternoon sunshine, a wide swath falling across the bed. Him and Sherlock, that second night, after Sherlock had slept in his bed for the first time. John curled to his side, breathing each other’s air. Sherlock whispering “Happy Birthday, John,” against his ear. The weight of his arm across his chest, his belly. Sherlock’s hair, wild and tangled across the pillow. Sherlock underneath him, writhing and gasping out his name, fingers clutching at John’s back. Desperately panting “I love you, I love you,” thighs quivering helplessly and John’s teeth buried in his shoulder. 

John sat down on the bed, his face in his hands. This was his life, here with Sherlock. The emptiness inside him, the feeling he’d had since he was a small child that everyone else knew something about being happy that he didn’t - Sherlock filled that emptiness. Before Sherlock, he’d tried to fill it with girls, sex, food, with the noise of war. None of it had made him fulfilled the way other people seemed to be. He’d never been able to figure out why other people were content and he wasn’t. He’d always felt broken. Sherlock made him feel whole. The instant their eyes had met across that lab table, a happiness had swelled in his chest, unfamiliar and bright, and he’d known he would follow Sherlock anywhere, do absolutely anything, to keep that feeling alive in him. 

Then they’d come to this flat, and Sherlock was so ridiculous and demanding and rude. All John could do was laugh. Sherlock’s absurdities absolutely delighted him. He couldn’t even pinpoint why. All he knew was Sherlock would bark an order at him, that would have made him punch anyone else in the teeth, and it made him smile and shrug helplessly. And then he’d do it, whatever it was. He liked making Sherlock happy, liked the baffled smile on his face when John figured something out before he did. Sherlock was broken, too, and together they were less so. 

 

Sherlock had made him laugh. He hadn’t laughed in so long, it felt foreign and strange in his throat. It had been that first night, chasing the cab with the American in the back, Sherlock with Lestrade’s police badge. John took it out of his hand, their skin brushing. He’d cocked that half smile at John, and suddenly he was laughing so hard his ribcage hurt. No one had made him laugh like that in a decade. He could still see the blue light in Sherlock’s hair, his eyes glittering and crinkled at the edges. A million lifetimes ago, when things between them were so simple. 

When John was Sherlock’s protector, his translator for the world. When Sherlock stole ashtrays from Buckingham Palace just to make John laugh, and John would punch anyone who dared to call Sherlock a freak. John had sworn to himself he’d never let anyone hurt Sherlock, and then he’d failed him again and again, ending up being the person who hurt Sherlock the most. 

Anger at himself and this whole horrible situation expanded through his stomach. This was eating through him like a cancer, stripping away all the parts of him that made him John Watson. His strength and his morality and his loyalty, they were what defined him. Now he felt weak and cruel and hypocritical. Everything that was wrong came back to one salient point; he and Sherlock were apart. The world just didn’t work that way. This would never go away, his alienation from himself, nor this aching emptiness. Not until they were together.

He stood up from the bed, considered smoothing the sheets so Sherlock wouldn’t know he’d been sitting there. No, he’d really rather have him know. From the desk in the sitting room he grabbed a sheet of paper.

Dear Sherlock,  
Since you won’t answer my texts or the phone, I stopped by. You weren’t here, obviously.  
I miss you and I need you. I think about you every second. Remember that first night, when you came to my room, and we woke up fitted together so perfectly? We’re still that. We still fit together perfectly.  
I made a mistake marrying Mary. I want to fix this. I love you. I know I’ve hurt you terribly, and I can’t begin to apologise for it, but I want to try. Please call me.  
John

It wasn’t particularly elegant, but then, neither was John. He left it inside Sherlock’s violin case, where it couldn’t be overlooked amongst the general clutter. 

Sherlock never called. 

***

“Hello, John. Did you come for me, too?”

A cold horror washed over John. He turned away from the drugged out son of his neighbor, the person he’d come to find, and stared at Sherlock. Dirty, laying on a filthy stained mattress on the floor of a fucking drug den. His horror turned to fury at the blithe smile on Sherlock’s face. 

They stared at each other. Sherlock looked so amused, so unconcerned. John felt like he was choking on something sharp. 

“You dickhead. You...Sherlock, what the fuck? What the fuck are you doing in this place?” He wrenched Sherlock up by the arm. God, he stank. “You know what, I don’t even want to talk about it here. Just, get your fucking arse in the car. I will deal with your shit later. You fucking...oh, I want to hit you so badly right now.”

John stalked away from him, unable to look him in the eye. He was afraid he would hit him again, like he had when he’d first come back, and there had never been a worse moment than Sherlock looking afraid of him. He never wanted to see that fear in his eyes again. But fuck. He was beyond furious right now.

“Come on, Isaac, get up.” He bit back the anger, trying to be gentle with his neighbor’s son. He wanted to scream, to punch something, someone, Sherlock. Himself. Every ounce of self control was threatening to dissolve with each passing second in this place. 

“John, it’s for a case.” Sherlock shuffled behind him, his overly large feet in a pair of secondhand trainers. His voice was pleading, higher pitched than normal. He was high, John was sure. He was fucking high.

His eyelid twitched. Still grasping Isaac's bicep firmly, he spun to face Sherlock. Pointed a quivering finger in his face. “You are high. I can tell. So, just...Do.not.talk.to.me.right.now. Just don’t. I don’t give a shit what your excuse is. A month, Sherlock. A fucking month. I called, I texted, I left a fucking letter, and nothing. And this is where I find you. I can’t. I can’t talk to you, listen to you...nothing right now, understand?”

Sherlock looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. Shifted his eyes away from John’s and dropped his head, mouth twisting to the side in a nervous gesture so familiar that John suddenly wanted to cry. He’d hurt him again, fabulous. Every time he opened his mouth, he hurt him.

God, what had their lives become? It used to be just cases and home and Sherlock’s head on John’s chest at night. Simple. Now everything was a disaster. They were the disaster. 

“Come on. Mary’s outside in the car.” This place was reminded John of a warzone, filthy and fragile and full of bodies only half alive. He couldn’t bear the thought of Sherlock in a place like this. He would never have done this if John was home, because John would never have allowed it. “We’re going to see Molly. Sherlock Holmes needs to pee in a cup.”

He heard the huff of indignation behind him, but Sherlock didn’t actually object. Good. He was going to start listening to John again, starting right now. He was done, absolutely done, with this bullshit.

They flopped into the car and Mary gave him a questioning look. He held a hand up to her. “Just. Don’t. Not now. Just drive us to Bart’s.”

He looked up into the rearview mirror and caught Sherlock’s eye. Sherlock smiled at him, and god help him, even in this moment, when his pulse was pounding with rage and fear, the sight of those perfect lips curved up at him and those verdigris eyes shining, his stomach fluttered. He tried not to smile back and almost succeeded. Almost. 

***

The ride back to Baker Street was tense and furious. Sherlock had definitely been high, Molly confirmed it. John was seething, and Sherlock was embarrassed and indignant. John had Mary drop them off. 

“You sure?” She leaned over, looking up at him out of the window. 

“Yeah, sure. I’ll get the tube back. I need to be with him now.” Sherlock was hovering behind him. 

Mary glanced at him, her eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. But John saw it. “You always need to be with him. I’m pregnant, you know! You could show a little concern.”

“Mary, I haven’t seen him in a month. That’s hardly all the time.” He was getting antsy, nervous tightenings in his stomach. He had to get alone with Sherlock and have this out. “Look, you want to have a row about this, we’ll have it later. Just...I need to go with Sherlock right now.”

“Fine. Sometimes, I think you should have married him instead of me.” She put the car in drive and skidded away from the kerb, causing a car coming up behind her to honk and slam on the brakes. 

He watched the car driving away. “Me too,” he muttered. 

He turned back to Sherlock, who was now staring suspiciously up at the windows of the flat. “Someone’s in the flat, John.”

“Yeah, I know.” John put his key in the door. “I called Mycroft.” 

“WHAT? You did what?” 

The door swung open, Mycroft perched on the bottom steps up to the flat, twirling his umbrella between his knees. “Hello, brother mine. Hello, John.”

“Thanks for coming, Mycroft.” John stepped forward and shook his hand. 

“Of course.” Mycroft twitched his head, which passed for a nod. 

The three of them stood there in silence, John and Mycroft staring at Sherlock, and Sherlock looking at the floor. Something shifted upstairs, sounding like furniture moving, and Sherlock’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling. 

“Who’s up there, Mycroft? You have people searching the flat?”

“Yes. I believe it’s your fan club.” Mycroft raised his eyebrows in disdain. 

“Oh for godssake.” Sherlock’s dove past Mycroft, racing up the steps.

Mycroft and John locked eyes. The look that passed between them could only have been shared between two people who knew Sherlock the way they did. They were the only two who understood the level of fury he engendered was directly proportional to the degree of love and devotion one had for him. No one was more devoted to Sherlock than Mycroft, not even John. John knew Mycroft loved his little brother fiercely, though he rarely outwardly expressed anything but condescension.

“He’s high, Mycroft. Well, coming down now, but he was.” John pressed his lips together, willing himself to not rage in front of Mycroft. 

“I’m very grateful you called me, John.”

“Of course. It’s our job to take care of him.” He sniffed, clenched his hand into a tight fist, flexed his fingers straight again. The stress inside him manifesting in all his familiar little tics. “And I haven’t done a very good job lately.”

Mycroft arched an eyebrow at him, questioning. 

John cleared his throat. “I haven’t. Anyway, let’s get upstairs before he kills someone.” 

***

Sherlock and Mycroft together cleared the flat of its other intruders, members of Anderson’s little Sherlock cult. John could never remember what they called themselves. He didn’t care. 

He stood in the sitting room, staring at the empty space across from Sherlock’s chair. His chair was gone. He retreated inside himself as Mycroft and Sherlock prattled and bickered.

His chair was gone. The carpet was darker underneath, thicker, not worn from the pacing of their feet, the bags and books and takeaway containers that had left their impression on the rest of the carpet. There were two scuff marks where John’s heels dug in, moved back and forth, a stain on the fireplace side from where he’d spilled a glass of wine years ago. He thought he’d mopped it all up. Never been able to see the stain before. Now he could. Because the chair wasn’t there. 

Sherlock then cleared the flat of Mycroft, threatening and yelling at him, bending his arm behind his back. John startled out of his reverie, talking Sherlock down, a ball of shock and horror in his gut. He’d never seen him behave like this. He had a moment of absolute clarity, truly understanding for the first time why Mycroft had been so eager to recruit him to be his minion all those years ago, to spy on Sherlock for him. He must have been desperate for someone to help him prevent Sherlock from returning to this.

John had failed them both.

Mycroft left, and Sherlock started rambling on about the case, but John barely heard. All he could do was look at the space where his chair used to be. It was gone. His chair was gone. 

“Where’s my bloody chair?”

Sherlock met his eye, anger flaring behind his own. “I moved it.”

John ground his teeth, breathed out hard through his nose. “Where?”

“Somewhere else. It was blocking my view to the kitchen.” 

“Bullshit.” His nose was twitching, he could feel it. He didn’t know how to define the emotions warring inside him. Guilt, anger, fear, sympathy...he knew Sherlock was hurting, that he’d done it. But moving his chair? It was as though Sherlock had just erased John out of his life. 

Sherlock held his gaze, challenging him to drop it first. John won. Sherlock shuffled his feet and looked at the floor. “It’s in your old room.”

“Why?”

“Do you really need me to spell it out?” Sherlock snapped.

John bit the inside of his cheek, guilt seeping through him. “No.” 

“Good.” Sherlock walked away down the hall. “I’m going to go get a shower. Do not go in my room.”

“You mean our room?” John muttered. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“It’s not your room anymore, John. Don’t go in there.” Sherlock pulled the bathroom door open and disappeared inside.

Of course Sherlock wanted him to go in, or he would never have said that. He knew John would completely ignore him, especially at the moment, when he clearly couldn’t be trusted to look after himself. John started down the hall, but the knob turned on the bedroom door, and he stopped dead. Why was the knob turning? Sherlock was in the bathroom, he could hear him. It wasn’t Sherlock. 

Why was there someone in their bedroom?

The door swung open and a tall brunette woman stepped out with a sheepish grin at John. He audibly gasped, mouth falling open. It was Janine, Mary’s bridesmaid. Whom they also hadn’t seen in a month. 

John couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Janine. In Sherlock’s shirt, and apparently nothing else, sauntering down the hallway towards him. Acid rose up in his throat. Burning with jealousy and confusion, he couldn’t even make his mouth work properly. 

“Janine?” Every cell in his skin was vibrating. This couldn’t be what it looked like. It couldn’t be. 

“Hi John, how’s Mary?” She was smiling, sauntering, the corners of Sherlock’s shirt brushing her bare thighs. He’d unbuttoned that very shirt, slipped it off of Sherlock’s shoulders and let it flutter to the floor before he pushed Sherlock onto the bed and climbed on top of him. How dare she be wearing it? How dare Sherlock let her? 

What was happening?

She started chattering at him. He couldn’t swallow. His skin was numb. 

She called Mycroft “Mike”. The cupboards were rearranged. She had food in the fridge. 

John felt tilted, like the planet was off its axis. He couldn’t make his mouth work. Just stood and pulled faces, trying to swallow, trying to understand why everything that made sense in his world was crumbling in the face of this giggling woman wearing Sherlock’s clothes. 

She disappeared into the bathroom. With Sherlock. John couldn’t get a breath. His stomach was roiling, listening to them giggling behind the closed door. A memory surged up, unbidden, of Sherlock pulling him into the bathroom, just days before the wedding. John with his back pressed against Sherlock’s stomach, their slippery bodies moving against each other, sloshing water all over the floor. John’s back arching, gasping, with Sherlock’s hand pulling him through an earth shaking orgasm, his lips at his ear, “That’s it, beautiful, John, oh you should see yourself right now.”

His throat tightened, achingly, at the memory. He pressed his thumb and index finger into his tear ducts until he saw spots. This just couldn’t be real. 

Sherlock came out of the shower, Janine got dressed. They flirted. Sherlock kissed her. He kissed her right in front of John. She sat in his lap. In the chair John had stared at, inconsolable with grief. In the chair he and Sherlock had made love in more than once. Snuggled in to watch telly together. John felt like he was in a horrible dream. Everything was surreal.

She left for work, like she owned 221B, like she had rights to be there. Sherlock kissed her goodbye. John’s rage was seeping out of his pores. Sherlock was his. HIS. 

As soon as the door was shut, John whirled on him. “What the fuck is this all about, Sherlock? You trying to make me jealous? It’s working.” 

Sherlock’s face was calm. He arched an eyebrow. “Now you know how it feels. Feels pretty awful, doesn’t it? Rather like your heart was being torn out of your chest, yes? Am I describing it accurately, John?”

The anger drained out of John in one quick rush that left him feeling weak. Sherlock was absolutely right. This was what it felt like to see the person you loved most in the world with someone else. He saw so clearly how cruel he’d been to Sherlock, asking him to stand beside him through his wedding to Mary. It must have seemed purposefully callous. No wonder Sherlock hadn’t wanted to talk to him for a month. 

“Christ, Sherlock. I’m sorry.” He stepped toward him, and Sherlock stepped back, pressing himself against the door. He eyed John warily. 

“Sherlock, please. I have so much to apologise to you for.” He dared to move a little closer, smiled tentatively. 

Sherlock tried to look haughty, but his eyes softened. “Do you really want to leave her? Like you said in the note?”

“Yes, oh god, yes, Sherlock. Marrying her was the worst mistake. You’re the only one I want, the only one I’ve ever wanted, all this time. I miss you so much I can’t stand it.”

“I miss you, too, John.”

They looked at each other, both feeling the distance beginning to close between them, little by little. John bit his lip, considering whether he really wanted to know the answer to the question burning through him. “You’re not really dating Janine? Please tell me you’re not.”  


Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him, a very tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth. “John. Have I ever kissed you like that?”

“Like you were made of marble and couldn’t move your face? No.” John’s lips twitched. “So. You’re not?” 

“No, I’m not. It’s...complicated. It’s to do with the case I’m working on.” 

John inched closer. He needed his hands on Sherlock, to touch him, hold him. “I don’t even care right now, I don’t even want to know. Just, can I hold you, please? I can’t bear to not touch you for one more second, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s mouth wobbled, that funny wavy motion that meant he was struggling with something. “John, are you coming home?" He breathed out in a hush.

John stepped across the room in two long strides and carded his fingers into Sherlock’s hair. “If you’ll have me. Will you? After all I’ve put you through? Will you still?”

Sherlock swallowed. “I don’t know how to be without you, John. I’m all...muddled inside. Things get...lost. I get lost sometimes.”

A painful lump swelled in John’s throat. He had so much to make up for. Sherlock depended on him. For everything. To make the world a place he could function in. John had let him down so badly, he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to fully forgive himself. 

He touched a timid finger to Sherlock’s neck. He didn’t flinch away. Trailed it down to his collar. Pressed a closed mouth kiss to his lips, wrapping his arms around his waist. Sherlock breathed in heavily, but didn’t move. 

John pressed Sherlock against the door, his heart thumping. “I want you. Right now. God, it’s been so long, Sherlock, please. I’ll do whatever you want, I just...I need to touch you. I need you to touch me. Please.”

Sherlock closed his eyes, head lolling back against the door. He seemed to be fighting with himself. His arms hung at his sides, his hands in fists. John pressed up and kissed his neck, put his hands inside his jacket. 

“Please, please. Anything you want. Anything. I’m so sorry, Sherlock.” Sherlock was just standing there, inert. John closed his eyes, dragged his lips heavy across Sherlock’s throat, wound one hand up into his hair. He wanted him so badly he couldn’t stand it. He had to show him, show him this was all that mattered, the two of them together.

He started unbuttoning Sherlock’s shirt, smoothed his palms over his bare chest. “Remember? Remember how we were? Please, Sherlock. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

Sherlock just stood there, breathing heavily through parted lips, his eyes closed. He hadn’t made a move to return John’s affections, hadn’t said a word. John watched his eyes moving behind his closed eyelids. He was locked in his mind palace, searching for something. 

John put his mouth against his chest, against his collarbone, stood up on tiptoes to put his lips against his ear. He feared, not for the first time in the last month, that he’d ruined them. That he’d done too many hurtful things, and Sherlock wouldn’t be able to forgive him. 

“I know I’ve been an awful git, and fucked everything up, but I can’t live without you. Please, Sherlock. I’ll do anything at all.” He kissed Sherlock’s earlobe, nuzzled his nose into his hair. “Say something, baby, please.”

Sherlock swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. Eyes still shut, his voice hushed, he said, “If you come back, you cannot ever leave me again. Ever. I would rather die.”

John’s stomach dropped. What he had gone through when he thought Sherlock was dead - the suffocating grief, everything that once was important not mattering at all in the face of the loss - he realised now that’s how deeply Sherlock had been suffering seeing John with someone else.  
Sherlock had done what he did for altruistic reasons, to protect John, or at least he believed that to be true. John didn’t even know why he hadn’t left Mary the moment he knew Sherlock was alive, didn’t even have a good reason. He’d just been tormenting the love of his life for a year for no fucking reason. 

He took Sherlock’s face between his hands, thumbs over smooth bone, fingertips sunk in soft curls, still damp from the shower. Sherlock’s eyes opened, shimmering with hope and sadness, red rimmed. He allowed himself to touch John finally, hands tentatively resting against his stomach. John pressed into his touch, and tilted his head down so they could look each other in the eyes properly. 

“You listen to me. I fucked this up. I should have realised the moment I saw you in that stupid waiter getup, that if you DYING couldn’t keep you away, there was no way I could ever be apart from you, and no reason I would ever want to be. You are so fucking loved, Sherlock. It’s like a piece of me is in you, and a piece of you in me. I know that doesn’t make any sense and it’s sappy and stupid, and sounds like a damned rom-com, but it’s the truth.” John was rambling now, but he didn’t care. “I was never happy before you, never completely happy, and you make me happy. So damned happy. I don’t know what I was doing before, I was lost and confused, and yeah, I think i was punishing you a bit, but I am not confused now. I am so sorry, I can’t tell you how sorry, and I just wan…”

Sherlock ducked down and stole the end of whatever John was going to say with soft wanting lips, pulling John’s lower one between both of his and sucking. Exploring fingers ranged up under John’s shirt, his mouth drifted away from John’s, down his jaw, found the spot on his neck that made his knees buckle. Sherlock nipped and sucked at his skin, arms going round his back and pulling them tight against each other. John’s head fell back, breath moving tremulously through his lungs. His vision went fuzzy at the edges. 

“Sher…” He breathed out, barely able to talk.

“John John John…” Sherlock murmured against John’s neck like a prayer. One hand spiraled up to grip the nape of John’s neck, and the other darted out from under his shirt to deftly begin unbuttoning it. He pressed his hips into John’s stomach, hot and hard already. 

They were still up against the door. Which they’d done plenty of times, but not today. John didn’t want hurried frottage in the sitting room. He’d been thinking about this for a month. He wanted them to take their time.

“Sherlock. I want to take you to our bed.” John flexed his fingers in Sherlock’s hair, Sherlock bruising the other side of John’s neck with his mouth. “I want to lay you down under me and see all of you, touch every bit of your skin with my tongue. I want to be inside you, and I want you inside me. I want to make you come until you can’t stop shaking. I want you to make me come so hard I can’t see. And then, I want to lie there and hold each other until...fuck, until forever.” 

“Oh my god, John.” Sherlock sank into him, wrapping his arms around him so tightly John couldn’t get a deep breath. “Yes, yes, please. Take me back.”

“I’m going to take you back, and you me. This, being apart, it’s done. We will never be apart again.” John traced his finger down the back of Sherlock’s neck, dipping into his collar to feel every nub of his spine between his shoulder blades. He was too thin. “I won’t let you down anymore. I promise.”

“You didn’t, you didn’t…” Sherlock hummed against John’s collarbone, lips barely brushing his skin. He would defend John with his last breath, even if John had been the one to take it from him. 

Fingertips grazed the top of Sherlock’s belt buckle. John rubbed his nose against Sherlock’s throat, beautiful tremors already running through him at the smell of Sherlock’s skin. “Yes, I did. I should have been here. I should have been taking care of you.”

Sherlock said nothing, just twitched his hips up, his cock pressing into John’s belly. They both grunted, falling even closer together. John took his hand, twisted their fingers together. He looked down at their hands entwined, remembering that first morning they’d woken up this way. It seemed so intimate, holding hands, in a way even sleeping in the same bed wasn’t. It was the moment they’d both really acknowledged what they were becoming. Now here were their fingers locked together again, years later, having been through death and marriage and estrangement, and they still fit perfectly. Palms slotted together like dovetailed edges. “Come on, sweetheart. I’m taking you to bed.”


	5. Claiming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little angst, a lot of sex.

Soft desperate lips found his, and somehow they made it down the short hallway without breaking the kiss, bumping into the kitchen doors and knocking a picture off the wall right outside the bedroom. John backed him up to the bed, until their knees hit the edge of the mattress, and Sherlock fell backwards, taking John with him. They landed a tangle of arms and legs, and Sherlock rolled them over until he was half on top of John, warm stomach heaving in the curve of John’s waist. 

“God, fuck, Sherlock, get this off.” John began tugging Sherlock’s shirt off his shoulders. 

“John.” There was a warning in Sherlock’s voice. John looked up and caught his eye, and Sherlock’s eyes shifted away. “You should know…”

“Oh, Sherlock.” John stopped, his heart sinking. He knew what he was going to see. Sucking in a deep steadying breath, he slipped his fingers under the collar of Sherlock’s shirt and gently slid it down one arm, then the other. The red lines and scabbed dots marring Sherlock’s arms were unmistakable. “Oh, baby, oh god. What have you done to yourself? You did this more than once? Jesus.”

“It was for the case, John. It had to be believable, and so I had to. It was just a week or so, I swear…” Sherlock looked terrified, his eyes huge and black. Always so afraid John would be angry with him. It was heartbreaking. John put his fingers to Sherlock’s mouth, cutting him off. 

“Please fucking tell me you did not share needles. Please.” John felt like he was going to be sick. He took his fingers away so Sherlock could answer him. 

“No never, John. Never. Honestly.” His voice broke on John’s name. 

“We’re going to have to get you tested, you know that.” He put his hands over his face and rubbed hard, unable to process the gravity of this at the moment. There would be months of tests, making sure Sherlock hadn’t gotten something, and months of worry that his addiction had started up again. John drew a shaky breath.

Sherlock nodded silently and looked out the window, avoiding looking at John. “I’m clean, I know I am. I didn’t share, I didn’t...I never did. Even before.”

John bit into his upper lip, hard. “We’re going to have to use condoms. For a long while. I hate to, but…you’ll have to be tested more than once.”

“John, I know, I’m so sorry….it was necessary. I had to, and I had to be believed…”

John’s stomach was in his throat. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to try to justify it. Just...Never again. I mean it. Never. I will never allow you to hurt yourself like this again. You hear me? I would never have allowed you to do this to yourself if I had been here.” 

He grabbed Sherlock’s arm, pressing closed mouth kisses all over the vicious marks. He wanted to make them disappear, incinerate them, purge them out of existence. But he couldn’t, so he kissed them and kissed them, trying to heal everything with just the desperation of his love. 

He rolled Sherlock over, and pulled his arms out straight, to really see the damage. There weren’t as many as there could have been, but to see the evidence of what Sherlock had done to himself, to see it, manifested physically...how little he cared for his own well-being...it was devastating. He pressed his mouth to Sherlock’s arm again. He couldn’t stop. He kissed up one arm and down the other, tears spilling hot down his face. “I hate that you did this. I hate it.”

Sherlock shook his head against the pillow, his own eyes welling up. “Never again, John. I promise.”

“We’re getting you tested. This afternoon.” John settled his belly against Sherlock’s side, propped on his elbow. Sherlock gazed at him, his eyes having regained their usual sparkle and clarity. He reached up and wiped John’s tear streaked face.

“Yes, doctor. I’ll do whatever you want me to. You’re here. I’ll do whatever you want.” He grinned, eyes crinkling, and pulled John down until their mouths were against each other, not quite kissing. “Just...I still want to...can we still…”

“Oh, Sherlock…” John nudged his nose against Sherlock’s. “You’re pretty hard for me to resist, if you haven’t figured that out by now. Damn near impossible, I’d say. Yes, of course I still want to.” 

Sherlock took John’s hand, brought it to his mouth. Head tilting, exposing the soft skin that John couldn’t help nuzzling his face into. Sherlock pouted his lips, pressed them to John’s fingers, lingering on each one. His eyes widened and he pulled John’s thumb into his mouth, swirling his tongue around and up, pressing into his knuckle and sweeping over his fingertip. He let his eyes flutter shut, black lashes quivering. He sucked hard, drawing John’s thumb deeper into his impossibly hot mouth, until those perfect lips were stretched wide around the heel of John’s hand.

“If you’re trying to...seduce me...it’s working.” A line of saliva ran down John’s hand toward his wrist, and the tip of a very pink tongue darted out just for a second to catch it. John shivered, wanting to pull that tongue into his mouth and suck, wanting it licking a stripe up his cock. 

Sherlock hummed agreement around John’s thumb, and snaked a hand down his stomach to press his erection through his jeans. Everything tightened immediately, and John arched into Sherlock’s palm. “Oh, fucking Christ, Sherlock. That feels so good. So good, fuck.”

Sherlock let John’s thumb out of his mouth with a pop, and opened his eyes. John grabbed his jaw and pulled him forward, licking at his mouth before sliding his tongue in between saliva wet lips. He hadn’t kissed Sherlock in a month until today, and it felt like longer than forever. He wanted to kiss him raw. They kissed like they did everything else, perfectly in sync. Each knew exactly when to pull back, when the other needed a breath, how deeply to press a hungry tongue, and when a hard bite was wanted instead of a gentle nip.

“I missed kissing you.” John whispered, still touching Sherlock’s lips with his own.

“I missed being kissed.” Sherlock nibbled at John’s bottom lip, rucked his shirt up out of his pants to pass a warm hand over his bare stomach. John felt him smiling. 

“What?”

“I like your belly.” Sherlock flipped them so John was flat on his back, ducked his head before John could stop him and pressed his face into the soft flesh above his waistband. He kissed and sucked, hands cradling John’s hips, turning the gentle nuzzling into something heated that made John squirm. 

“I really want all these clothes off. Right now.” John pushed gently at Sherlock’s head, bent a knee and curled up. “Come on, baby, let me up for a second.”

Sherlock rocked back on his heels, watching John with heavy lidded eyes. He reached behind him and pulled his undershirt off, undid his own belt, and then flopped on his back and kicked his trousers off. John stood up and unbuttoned his shirt, let it fall off his arms, dropped his jeans to the floor and then crawled back onto the bed, climbed over Sherlock, straddling his thighs. 

“Hey, you,” He breathed out, taking Sherlock’s face in his hands and kissing him tenderly, sweeping his lips back and forth over Sherlock’s. “Been awhile.”

“John, I love you.” Sherlock ran his hands up John’s arms, over the thick muscles in his forearms, the smooth curving rise of his biceps, and laced his fingers together behind John’s neck. “I never did this, with Janine, I never...only you. Only ever you.”

Guilt seared through John’s throat, leaving it raw and burning, knowing he couldn’t say the same. All he could do was apologise with his mouth and his hands and his body, show Sherlock that he loved him more than anyone else. He pressed their mouths together again, sucking on the point of Sherlock’s tongue when it darted between his lips. Sherlock parted his lips wider, allowing John to lick deeply into his mouth and roll their tongues together. Sherlock writhed and dug his fingers into the back of John’s skull. 

John rocked his hips down, bone against bone. Thier cocks slid together through thin pants, and they both groaned. Sherlock’s hands flew to his waist, fingers digging into the slight pudge he had there now. John hooked his thumbs into Sherlock’s and tugged. “Let’s get these off. I want to see all of you.”

John’s fingers slipped under the elastic, massaging into soft skin and the trail of soft curls there. He ghosted his fingertips along the base of Sherlock’s cock, and Sherlock made a needy whinging noise that spiraled down right to John’s. “And you, John.”

“Yes, and me.” 

A few seconds of frenetic rustling and pants had been disposed of. John rolled back to lay on Sherlock, one hand roamed down Sherlock’s chest, rubbing his nipples between his index and middle fingers. Sherlock rolled under his hand, bit into his lip. Christ, John had missed watching this. He pressed his thigh up into the heat between Sherlock’s legs, his testicles spreading soft against John’s skin. 

“Oh, John,” Sherlock gasped, one long leg bending up, the bottom of Sherlock’s foot rubbing the back of John’s calf. His face was flushed unevenly, blood blossoming under that pale skin.

“Remember what I said?” John mouthed at Sherlock’s shoulder, lapping at his skin. He was hot, burning with arousal. “About licking every inch of you?”

“Mmmmm…” Sherlock hummed helplessly, his head rolling on his shoulders, eyes closed.

“I’m going to start right here.” John traced Sherlock’s collarbone with the tip of his tongue, the cup of his suprasternal notch, dragging it along his neck. He mouthed at Sherlock’s jaw, scraping his teeth against his skin, smooth and freshly shaven. He sucked at the soft hollow right under his ear. “I missed you every second, Sherlock. Missed us.”

Sherlock smoothed his fingers through John’s hair. “Me, too.”

John kissed down his chest, licking at scars, flicking his tongue over pink nipples, leaving wide trails of saliva over Sherlock’s ribcage. Sherlock’s hands fell beside his head, curled fists against his ears. His hips wiggled a little, rubbing his cock against John’s chest, and he made an impatient little panting noise. 

John looked up from where he’d been sucking out a bruise on Sherlock’s waist. “Patience is a virtue, sweetheart.”

“Tease.” He was smiling at John with mischievous eyes. 

They looked at each other for a long moment. A peace settled over John, all the tension and misery he’d been carrying around since The Fall beginning to finally melt away. Sherlock was here, warm and gorgeous and so wonderfully alive underneath him, John was never going to leave him again, never let him hurt himself. He would take care of him, and Sherlock would take care of John just by being his ridiculous self. They were together, properly, which they hadn’t been in three years. It wasn’t going to be stolen moments and pretend pub nights anymore. No rendezvous at John’s lunch break. Well, maybe still some of those, but they wouldn’t have to hide it. 

It had been three years of unrelenting sadness. Now, staring up into Sherlock’s shining aquamarine eyes, John felt something sing inside him that hadn’t since before The Fall. They were going to be happy. They actually had a shot at being happy. 

He tipped his head forward again and kissed the crease between Sherlock’s thigh and hip, brushed his hand up the inside of his leg, fingertips just barely ghosting over Sherlock’s flushed erection. He wriggled and moaned, the tip of his cock slick already. John wanted so badly to dip his tongue there, to taste him, but he just couldn’t, not after seeing those scabbed and bruised arms. 

He wrapped his fingers around him instead, pumping slowly, and buried his nose in musky curls and soft skin. Licking, licking, taking in every scent, every sensation. Sherlock’s hips jutted up, rocking into John’s grasp. He moaned deep in his throat.

“Like that, do you?” Tongue trailed across Sherlock’s belly, his cock brushing against John’s jaw.

“No, I hate it. I’m groaning in agony.” Sherlock curled the fingers of one hand into John’s hair, tugging just enough on the short hairs to make John’s hips jump. 

“You fucking smart arse. You’re going to pay for that.”

“I certainly hope so.” John looked up to see a crooked leer on Sherlock’s mouth, his eyes half closed. 

“Oh, I’m going to kiss that look right off you.” He crawled up, kissing and licking his way up Sherlock’s belly, sucking one hard nipple into his mouth and rolling it between his teeth. He felt the goosebumps break out all over Sherlock’s skin, as he dug his fingers into John’s shoulder. “Well, you definitely like that.”

Sherlock made some kind of unintelligible noise, something between a whimper and a groan, and pulled at the back of John’s head. 

“Oh, you want me up there...I thought you wanted me down here…” he said as he slid his hand around to cup Sherlock’s testicles while gently sliding one finger back and delving in just enough to make Sherlock’s spine curve up. Looking at the lean arch of his body, blushed and shivering, John groaned in sympathy, his own cock jumping. 

“John…” Sherlock never used pet names, just...John. He always said it like an incantation, like it was a word laden with meaning and emotion. Which, for Sherlock, it was. Now he said it with a shaking voice and eyes swimming with arousal, black and wet. 

“Yeah, baby?” John breathed out, too turned on to tease anymore.

“Kiss me.” 

John planted one hand on either side of Sherlock’s head. Sherlock’s hands came up on his back, running up and down and around to his chest, rubbing warmth and calm into him. John leaned down, eyes falling shut, and brushed their noses together. He pursed his lips, just touched their lips together, then drew Sherlock’s bottom one slowly between his licked and sucked. 

Sherlock’s tongue pressed into John’s upper lip, seeking entrance. John granted it, tilted his head and opening his lips. Sherlock’s hand pressed to the back of his head, and their kissing became frantic, biting and sucking at each other desperately until John had to reach down and press his hand into his erection, just to ease the pressure a bit. He panted out his relief into Sherlock’s mouth, curling his fingers around himself.

“Oh, god, Sherlock.” Sherlock took the hint and eased John’s hand away with his own. He pulled upwards with gentle pressure, and John breathed out hard, head falling forward to rest against Sherlock’s. Sherlock pulled his foreskin up over the tip and pinched a little, and suddenly John was jutting his hips forward and groaning, “Oh god, oh fuck, just like that, baby, oh god…”

Sherlock slid his hand back down, loosening his fingers to splay wide and then bringing them back together and up, pulling firmly. He nudged John’s head, brushing their lips together. “You know I never wanted anyone but you, John. Never.”

“Never?” John could hardly talk, his voice was a heaving whisper.

Pull, twist, pinch. “No.” Sherlock shook his head, words disappearing into John’s mouth. “Never. I had sex with people, but I never WANTED them. I want you. All the time.”

“I want you all the time, too. God, I was so stupid, Sherlock, how can you ever...ah….forgive me?” John was thrusting into the circle of Sherlock’s fist, heat blooming over his entire body. “Oh, fuck, I’m so close already.”

Sherlock slowed, his arm was aching from the odd angle anyway. He gave a lingering sweep over the head and pulled his hand away. “No more of that for you, then. I want you to come inside me.”

John nuzzled into the side of Sherlock’s neck. “And I want you to come inside me. In a condom. But while you’re inside me.”

A thought occurred to him. He reared his head back and looked at Sherlock. “Do we HAVE any condoms?”

They’d never used them before.

Sherlock looked mortified. “Um, yes. Because Janine...she was...preparing for…”

John bit back his completely unreasonable jealousy. “Oh. But you never…”

“No, we never. Just some...snogging. A bit of fooling around, that’s all.” Sherlock bit his lip, trying to hold back a grin. 

John settled into him, elbow bent, head resting on his hand. His tongue darted out. “Oh, yeah? I cannot even imagine that, Sherlock Holmes.” Unbelievably, he was finding this kind of a turn on. He ran his nose up the side of Sherlock’s neck, pressed his lips to his ear. “Did you like it?”

Sherlock turned nine shades of red and looked at the ceiling. 

John licked at his earlobe, nibbled it. Sherlock squirmed and let his head fall toward John’s mouth. “Tell me, I wanna know...did you like it?”

Sherlock made a frustrated humming noise. “A little.”

A jolt of frission went right through John, and he bit into Sherlock’s ear, making him jump. “Sorry, sorry.” He touched the place he’d bitten with his finger, kissed it, soothed it. Then he rocked his pelvis against Sherlock’s hip, pressing his cock into Sherlock’s bone, breathed against his neck. “What did you like?”

He would never have imagined Sherlock with a woman. The thought was equal parts arousing and alien. 

“I liked, uh...her waist.” Sherlock let out a shuddering breath and looked at John. He looked both embarrassed and turned on. “I liked, the way her waist curved. It was...different.”

“Yeah?” John licked down Sherlock’s neck, making him gasp. “What else? There had to be more.”

He licked back down Sherlock’s body, paying special attention to his nipples, licking them with a wide flat tongue. He wrapped a hand around Sherlock, and pulled up gently. Sherlock’s hips came up off the bed, his testicles drawing up already.

“Oh John, John, oh god…I can't think right now.” His head rolled to the side, mouth open, the flat of his hand pressed against his forehead.

John lowered his head, licked around his testicles, hand still pumping gently, pulling his foreskin up and back. He pressed his tongue into Sherlock’s perineum, flicking and pushing, tasting the sweet musky scent of him. God, he loved that smell. He rubbed his nose against him, and pulled the soft pink skin into his mouth a little.

A hand was suddenly on his head, fingers massaging his scalp. “Oh, god, John...don’t stop, don’t stop…”

Sherlock’s thighs tightened around him, pressing into the top of his head. He started pressing up, hips rising off the bed. John slowed his hand, pressed a kiss to the spot his tongue had just been, and slid up Sherlock’s chest. 

“Mm-mmm. Not yet.” He sucked at the creamy white skin under Sherlock’s jaw. “Inside me, remember?”

Sherlock growled and grabbed John’s hips, pressing them down into him. John practically bent in two. “Well, let’s get to it, then.”

“Mmmmm, I like you like this. Bossy.” Skin on fire, ears burning, John sat up reluctantly, pressing himself away from Sherlock’s warmth. “Now where are these elusive condoms?”

Sherlock threw an arm out, pointing towards the loo. He twirled his hand vaguely. “In there, somewhere. I don’t know where she put them.”

“Right. I’ll just be a minute. Don’t you move.” John winked at him and jumped off the bed, a saunter in his step.

Sherlock hummed in appreciation, as John knew he would. “You’ve got a magnificent arse, John.”

“I know…” He called from the bathroom, a smirk spreading across his face. 

He dug through drawers in the little cabinet next to the sink, the drawers that once held his shaving kit, deodorant, soap. Now they were filled with pink razors and makeup, hairspray and perfume bottles. God, how had she moved in here so completely in a month? The jealousy that was a bit of a turn on twenty minutes ago, and just plain ridiculous a few moments ago settled into John’s jaw, hard and tangible. He seethed out a breath, slammed a drawer shut, yanked open another. There they are. Not opened, thank Christ. But still. 

He knew he had no right to be jealous. He’s been sleeping with his wife - not that often, truthfully - for the last year while he and Sherlock had been having sex. He knew he had absolutely no.right.at.all. to be jealous. Yet. A buzzing filled his ears. Mine. Mine. Sherlock is mine. 

He swept the box of condoms out of the drawer and stalked back into the bedroom. He wasn’t angry at Sherlock. He wasn’t really angry at all. It was just that they belonged to each other, they always had, and all of these things kept getting in the way. He was so tired of things being in the way of them. They were what mattered, had always mattered, just the two of them. John was done with being concerned about hurting other people, about the possible fallout. No more guilt. No more hesitation, hypocrisy, cheating. He felt fierce. Possessive. 

He swarmed down over Sherlock, who had been just staring at the ceiling with his fingers laced behind his head, straddled him and pressed him into the mattress, dragged hot lips across his neck. A soft surprised moan floated past John’s ear as Sherlock’s arms encircled his shoulders.

“John…” Sherlock’s voice was questioning, as was to be expected, since John’s mood had done a 180 after five minutes in the loo. 

“I fucking love you so much. I’m sick of everything being in the way.” John growled, mouthing at Sherlock’s jaw, running his hand down his side to feel the luscious rise of his hipbone and spreading his fingers across it. “I can’t stand for anything to be in the way of this anymore.”

There was surprise in Sherlock’s eyes as he drew back and looked into John’s. “John, what’s wrong? What happened to you in there?”

“Janine. Her stuff…” He nudged his nose against Sherlock’s, nipped his lower lip hard enough that he yelped. “All over my bathroom. All over you. You’re mine. That’s what happened. Your mine and I’m yours.” 

“Yes. Yes, John. We won’t be parted again. I promise you that.” The look in Sherlock’s eyes was dangerous. Good. John felt dangerous, too. All the roiling, conflicting emotions he'd had since Sherlock returned exploded into raw need.

The air in the room was crackling with electricity. Whatever else was going to happen between them was going to happen fast and intense. John needed to be taken, split apart, recreated.

He curled his tongue against Sherlock’s ear, his voice a hoarse whisper. “You first, baby. Take me apart.” 

Sherlock’s eyes blazed. He immediately put both hands on John’s shoulders and pushed him back so he was sitting on his heels. He sat up and seized the back of John’s head, yanked him forward for a hard kiss, all teeth and heat. “I am gonna fuck you so good, John.”

God, Sherlock saying those words. It was pure adrenaline. John’s head fell back, hard shivers wracking him, all the muscles in his lower body tightening, blood flooding through them. “God, yes, please. I need it. I need it, Sherlock. I need you to take me back.”

Sherlock threw his long legs over the side of the bed, feet on the floor. His cock stood up against his stomach, maroon red and gorgeous. He nodded a come’ere to John, twitched a half smile at him, arm snaking around his waist. John ripped open the box of condoms and opened one as quickly as he could. 

“I’ll do it.” He scrambled across the bed and rolled the condom down over Sherlock’s cock, slow, making Sherlock shiver. He threw a leg over his lap and knelt up, pressing their chests together. He could feel Sherlock’s heart beating against his ribs. . 

“Mmmm-mmm. You know how this goes. Has it really been that long?” Sherlock leaned to the side, taking the lube from the drawer. He kissed John’s throat, tongue flicking out gently, and looked up at John with dark eyes. “You’re not half ready.”

John was beyond the point of reason. He wanted Sherlock inside him five minutes ago. “Oh god, Sherlock. Hurry up.” 

Sherlock put one hand in the small of John’s back and pulled him completely flush against him, spread his own knees a bit. He sank his mouth to John’s shoulder and licked the scar, the scar that had made them possible in the first place. No gunshot, no coming home, no Mike Stamford in the park, no Sherlock. Just the thought of it made John wrap his arms around Sherlock tighter, hitch his hips up against him, their cocks sliding against each other. 

Tremors coursed through him at the contact as Sherlock reached around with slicked fingers, mouth now at John’s Adam’s apple. “Ready, John?” His voice rumbled through John’s throat, vibrating against his own vocal chords. 

“God, baby, yes, come on.” He was whinging, he knew it, begging. He wanted it so badly. 

Sherlock huffed out a breath, lips moving against John’s skin, and pushed one finger inside. Oh god, it was such a relief, a part of Sherlock inside him again. Every hormone in John’s body flooded through him like a tide. He was immediately lightheaded, weightless. He twirled short fingers into the curls at Sherlock’s nape and pulled. 

Sherlock grinned knowingly, arced his wrist differently. OH. Three fingers all at once. “Oh, fuck oh god oh god oh god, oh Sherlock,” John hissed out through clenched teeth, actively riding his hand, cocks still creating that delicious friction even as Sherlock’s fingers thrust into him. His thighs clenched, knees digging into Sherlock’s hips, bending the edge of the mattress down. 

Sherlock’s fingers pushed in farther, John rocking down, and his stomach muscles clenched. A long ‘ahahahaaaaa’ escaped him as he exhaled, his head so light it felt disconnected from his body. 

“John, come here.” Sherlock slipped his fingers out and cupped John’s arse with his long hands pulling him up and forward. John reached a hand behind him until he could grasp Sherlock’s cock, the feeling of the condom slightly foreign, and guide him inside. The first touch against him and he was already quivering, skin sizzling with oversensitivity. 

Sherlock pulled on his hips, drawing him down, and god, his fingers were hot, so hot, against John’s skin. When he sank down, back arching instinctively as Sherlock filled him up, those hot fingers dug in hard enough to bruise - but it wasn’t hard enough, not nearly. Every inch of his skin wanted marking, claiming, Sherlock’s scent massaged into his epidermis and the shape of Sherlock’s fingers embedded in his muscles. Owned, he wanted to be owned. 

Sherlock didn’t thrust up right away, lazily rubbing his face against John’s chest. John arched, tightened his knees, breathed out hard and drew his muscles around Sherlock inside him. Sherlock shuddered against his chest, slid his arms tight around John’s back. The desperate need to move overtook John. He rocked down and forward, rolling his hips in languid circles. Sherlock shifted inside him, and John let out a low rolling groan. 

“I missed you inside me, oh god, I missed this.” John touched his lips to Sherlock’s Adam’s apple, his chin, kissed up until their mouths met. 

“John.” Sherlock breathed out against John’s lips. He cupped the back of John’s head and crushed their mouths together hard, pulling at John’s bottom lip with his teeth until they both tasted blood. He fell backwards, as graceful as a ballet dancer, rolling onto the bed with an arched back. The angle changed, and Sherlock was deeper inside him. John shuddered with pleasure, shivers caressing every inch of his skin.

He rolled his head on his neck, eyes closed, his hands braced against Sherlock’s thighs. As he breathed out, he let himself relax, sinking down ever further. “Sherlock, fuck, shit, that’s so good, oh my god.”

The room was hot, so hot. A bead of sweat rolled down from his hairline and slid down his spine as he began to rock, moving so the heels of his hands pressing into Sherlock’s hard stomach. Every infinitesimal pulse and swell of Sherlock inside him made him shake. Sherlock pressed his hips up and held them.

John bit his lip, leaned forward a little and put a stilling hand against his chest. “No, just let me. Just let me do this for you, make you come. You just lay there. Just lay there and look beautiful.”

“I can do that.” Sherlock closed his eyes, smiling, and laid his hands warm against the tops of John’s thighs. 

Ignoring the hard shivers running all through him, John slid his fingers in between Sherlock’s and laced them together, pulled them up with palms together she he could brace himself against Sherlock’s outstretched arms. He rolled forward, soft grunts and and moans punctuating each slide of his thighs against Sherlock’s. Sherlock’s fingers tightened around his, and he sped up, knees pressing tight into Sherlock’s hips. 

The room fell oddly silent around them. The only sounds filling John’s ears were the creak of the mattress, and wet slide of their skin, and the little pants and growls passing between them. The air was still. Everything had stopped except them. 

We’re the only things in the universe, John thought. 

Except he must have said it aloud, because Sherlock replied breathily, “I wouldn’t care if we were, John.”

“We are, baby, we are.” John tightened down, snapping his hips up and back punishingly fast. He was so full, so perfectly full, Sherlock inside him twitching and pulsing. Swelling. He was close. “Shit, shit, come on, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s teeth dug into that full bottom lip. His head was thrashing from side to side, colour high on pale skin, sweaty curls plastered to his forehead and the side of his neck. All John wanted to see was Sherlock completely undone, hear him calling John’s name. 

He made small circles with his hips, squeezing their thighs together. Sherlock curled up, stomach muscles tensing, teeth bared in a grimace of almost agonising pleasure, and clenched his fingers around John’s hand until they were digging into the bones. It would have hurt at any other time, but John was too flooded with endorphins to notice.

“Say my name. When you come, say my name, Sherlock. I want to hear you take me back.” John knew the effect his words would have on Sherlock, and he was right. 

Immediately Sherlock was coming, calling out, “John John John…” as his muscles convulsed, sending him arching back, head pounding into the mattress, and then curving back up, hips stuttering helplessly. John missed the familiar warmth of Sherlock coming inside him, knew he’d miss feeling his come slipping down his thighs, hot and sticky and gorgeous. 

Sherlock’s hips stopped moving, his iron grip on John’s hands finally loosening, leaving white bloodless depressions on John’s skin. He let out a long quivering breath, lips even fuller and redder than usual. Blood red. Swollen and hot. 

John had to put his lips on that mouth. He felt his tongue snaking out, shivers licking icy up the backs of his arms. Sherlock was still shaking, little desperate moans panting out between his lips. John leaned over, feeling Sherlock sliding out of him, and fell over his mouth hungrily. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you…” He couldn’t stop saying it, kissing Sherlock with his words, Sherlock swallowing half of them, licking them out of John’s mouth as their tongues curled against each other. 

Sherlock’s lips moved down his jaw, and he sucked at the skin under John’s ear gently. 

“Don’t be gentle, Sherlock. Harder. I want you to cover me in bruises. So everyone sees. Come on, harder.” Sherlock made a little happy moaning noise and complied, pressing John’s neck to his mouth with one hand, sucking skin between his teeth. John could feel the blood coming to the surface and it stung like a tattoo needle, beautiful pain. 

He groaned and his hips rocked forward automatically, brushing Sherlock’s stomach with his cock. He bucked and curled his spine, just that light contact sending spirals of electricity through him. Sherlock smiled against his neck and broke the suction, pressed his closed lips to the fresh bruise. 

He scrabbled across the bed for the box of condoms and pulled out another, waved it back and forth, a wicked smile lighting his flushed face. “Now you, John.”


	6. I Will Never Leave You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically just a whole lot of fluffy porn.

They spent all day in bed. Dozing, John’s head against Sherlock’s pale stomach, their legs knit together. Kissing languidly, Sherlock’s mouth enveloping John’s lips, their hands clasped together, pressed into the pillow above John’s head. Making love slow and soft, Sherlock panting into John’s hair, John’s back arching off the mattress as he whispered Sherlock’s name. Fucking frantically, John rutting against Sherlock like an animal in heat, desperate with need, biting into his shoulder as Sherlock thrashed and whimpered underneath him.

All day. Just revelling in each other, in what they’d agreed to be. In quiet moments, sweaty and sticky, they murmured promises through kiss swollen lips. John would leave Mary. She would have to understand. That they were soul mates, partners, best friends. That they’d loved each other forever and longer. Since before they met. That they’d spent their lives waiting for each other. That no one else could ever hope to match what they had together.

Or she wouldn’t understand, and she would hate them both. Either way, John was coming home to Sherlock, starting now.

They were exhausted and aching and had used the entire box of condoms by the time evening rolled around. The bedroom was a disaster, the sheets damp and twisted. An early moon had risen, bathing the bedroom in a soft blue glow. John was starving. Sherlock was sleeping, a thin scabbed arm thrown out across the bed, his mouth parted. John threw on his pants and tee shirt, and bent down to press his lips to Sherlock’s brow.

“I love you.” He whispered softly against Sherlock’s hair, and smoothed it back from his forehead as he stood up.

“Mmmm.” Sherlock hummed contentedly and rolled to his side, curling his knees up to his bare chest.

John lingered for a moment, just watching Sherlock sleep, remembering that first night. Can I stay here, John? Please? Waking up with Sherlock wrapped around him, warm and right. He bent down and kissed Sherlock’s shoulder, nuzzled his nose against his warm skin, overcome with emotion at all they’d been through and still somehow managed to end up together.

He was quickly sobered by the thought of having to call Mary. God, she was pregnant. There was a baby on the way. A rush of guilt swept through him, but there was nothing for it. Sherlock was everything to him. He just couldn’t pretend anymore. Couldn’t pretend that a life with Mary could ever be enough.

With one last brush of lips against Sherlock’s shoulder, making him wriggle and sigh into the pillow, John ambled into the kitchen to find something to eat. He was nearly lightheaded from hunger. There was nothing to eat here, as usual. He found a box of stale biscuits in the back of a cabinet and there was a rind of cheddar in the fridge. It would do.

He stacked the biscuits and cheese on a plate, balanced a knife on top, and got water from the tap to drink. The sitting room was rosy and comforting, all the table lamps on, and a yellowy light drifting in from the streetlamps. His chair still wasn’t here. They’d have to fix that tomorrow. He settled into Sherlock’s chair, staring at the empty space. God, the pain he had caused Sherlock. It was inexcusable, what he’d done, knowing how Sherlock felt about him.

He’d been so selfish. And he was about to be again. It was inevitable that Mary would be hurt, but he just couldn’t live without Sherlock, nor Sherlock without him. The image of those red streaks and vicious scabs on Sherlock’s arms flashed in his mind’s eye; he had driven Sherlock to that. Case or no, John would never have allowed it to happen, and he’d let Sherlock down, terribly. He wouldn’t do that again. He would be here forever to take care of him.

He chewed a biscuit, stomach still rumbling, and tried to remember where his phone could possibly be. Where had his jacket ended up? Probably on the hallway floor.

The jacket was on the floor, discarded in the haste of getting each other into the bedroom. He smiled to himself, dug the phone out of the pocket. Not a single message from Mary. Odd, considering he’d been gone the majority of the day. He didn’t text her. These were things that couldn’t be said any other way but face to face.

He was chewing thoughtfully and staring into the fireplace when Sherlock appeared in the kitchen doorway. Rumpled and sleepy, creases from the pillow striated across his cheeks. He smiled at John, eyes glittering in the soft light.

“Hey, you.” John said quietly. He put the plate to the side and beckoned Sherlock over. “Come here.”

Sherlock drifted across the room, wrapped up in a bed sheet, ethereal and lovely. He sank to the floor between John’s legs and rested his head heavily against his thigh. John’s hand fell naturally to the top of his head, playing with those black curls he could never resist. He twisted a lock around and around his index finger, let it fall, picked up another. Sherlock’s hair was so soft. It felt like down feathers between his fingers, smooth and weightless, barely even there. Sherlock looked up at him, the expression on his face so gentle and quiet, John couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen Sherlock look so at peace.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I woke up and you weren’t there. I missed you.” Sherlock rubbed his cheek into John’s thigh gently. “I had to come find you.”

“I was just hungry, love. I’m not going anywhere.” He fished a biscuit from the pack and held it down to Sherlock, “Here. You need to eat, too. Especially with all you’ve put your body through recently.”

Sherlock accepted it, sniffed it, turned it over and looked at both sides. His nose wrinkled.

John laughed. “I didn’t poison it. What are you doing?”

“Where on earth did you find these? I haven’t bought Jaffa Cakes since you lived here.” He took a tentative nibble and shrugged. Popped the rest in his mouth and looked up at John expectantly.

“Well, they can’t possibly be three and half years old, so let’s assume Mrs Hudson bought them and left them for you.” John was so bursting with affection and happiness, he felt like he was floating. He handed Sherlock another. “Here, you ridiculous thing. God, I love you.”

Sherlock took the biscuit and continued gazing at John with wide eyes, his long lashes casting shadows up onto his eyelids. “I love you, too. I’m sorry, John. Truly. About leaving, about all you went through when I was gone. I should have done that all differently, and it would have saved us both so much pain.”

“Don’t. I’ve made horrible decisions, too. You’re not the only one who’s fucked up here. But...I don’t want to dredge all that shit up over and over. We’re here now, we’re going to make every right again. Don’t lets beat ourselves up over things we can’t change.” John brushed a hand over Sherlock’s cheek, and he closed his eyes and nudged into the touch like a cat. John half expected him to purr.

“We need more condoms.” Sherlock said, eyes still shut. He ate the second biscuit, and crawled up into John’s lap, bed sheet slipping off his shoulders. He curled his long body against John’s chest, somehow fitting himself entirely, his feet tucked cosily between John’s thigh and the arm of the chair.

“Oh really?” Sherlock’s nose rubbed rhythmically against his cheek, and John turned his head so they were nose to nose, mouths barely touching. “You planning on going another round tonight?”

“Well...I did have somewhere I was planning on going tonight...but it can wait.” Sherlock’s breath smelled of chocolate and oranges from the biscuit. John could taste it on his lips.

“You taste good.” John’s belly tingled. He closed his eyes and touched his tongue to Sherlock’s bottom lip. He wanted to make love to Sherlock for the rest of his life. God, he never wanted to stop touching him, kissing him, drowning in him. He could live this day over and over and never tire of the smell of Sherlock’s skin, the taste of his mouth, the sound of him sighing, undone and blissed out, draped like a blanket over John’s legs.

Sherlock grinned against John’s mouth, and shrugged the sheet down until it fell past his waist. He looped his arms around John’s neck and closed his lips around John’s bottom one, suckling gently. Wiggling his arse against John’s lap, he trailed a finger down his neck, tracing the collar of his tee shirt. “So. Which one of us is going to go out and get them?”

***

John yanked his jeans up, shaking his head affectionately. It was always going to be him. In six years, Sherlock had never even picked up milk. Of course it was him.

Sherlock lounged naked on the bed, flat on his stomach, texting someone.

“Who’re you talking to?” John knelt at the side of the bed, kissed Sherlock’s bare back.

“Janine. I was supposed to...ah...meet her tonight. Oh, that’s nice.” Sherlock shivered against him, bending at the waist. The muscles in his back went taut and rippled, and John licked at his skin with the tip of his tongue. He nipped at the curve of Sherlock’s arse, making him jump and smack at John’s head.

“I’m not even gone yet, and I can’t wait to get back.” John mouthed languidly at the dip of Sherlock’s spine, and licked a strip up his back.

“Well, hurry up then.” Sherlock rolled over and tossed his phone on the empty side of the bed. He stretched his arms above his head until his back made a perfect arch. God, he was beautiful. The long lines of his legs, the hollows of his stomach, cock half hard and flushed.

John couldn’t not touch him. He crawled on top of him, straddled his hips, mouth roaming over his chest. “What are you trying to do to me, hmmm?”

Sherlock’s hand fell to the back of John’s head, long fingers playing in his hair. “I’m not trying to do anything, John. I’m just laying here.”

“Filthy little liar.” John said with a grin, kissing up Sherlock’s neck and feeling his breath quicken. “You.are.such.a.tease.”

“It’s not teasing...oh...if I plan on...oh, oh god, John...following through…” Sherlock’s fingers tightened in John’s hair, John’s mouth working down over the ridges of his ribs, fingers trailing heat over his sides until they wrapped around Sherlock’s hips. Carefully but firmly, holding Sherlock like a precious, fragile thing. Like something he was afraid to break.

By the time John’s lips reached the curve of his pubic bone, Sherlock was writhing, a long leg pressing into John’s back.

“Oh, please, John…” Voice broken, already short of breath. What John could do to him, in just moments. Just a few soft sweeps of his lips, the sweet pressure of his fingertips in the flesh of Sherlock’s thigh, and he’s unravelling. John could take him apart with a look. Put him back together the same way.

“Oh, I want to, Sherlock, I do.” John’s lips buried in the soft hair at the base of his cock, tongue darting out to taste his skin. Then there was a hard heat rocking into his leg, and they both moaned, dizzy with need and want, even after twelve hours of lovemaking. “I want to taste you. I want to feel you come in my throat, I want to feel your skin on my tongue. God, fuck, I do so badly. But we just can’t right now, baby, I’m sorry.”

“I know...it’s my fault…” Sherlock felt a rush of annoyance, and pushed at John’s head. “Oh, please, stop though. Stop now, please, I can’t take anymore of this if there won’t be more. Just go, go, John. Go get them. I want more of you tonight. I need you again. Please.”

“You’re insatiable, you are.” John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s collarbone, and then his neck, and finally the tip of his nose. Eyes sparkling at him, he smiled and rubbed their noses together. “What on earth is there left to do? We’ve done it all today.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to be repetitive.” Sherlock smacked John on his arse and grinned. “Now go. And hurry up.”

***

John tapped his foot against the linoleum floor, rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. He ducked his head around the shoulder of the broad man in front of him in the queue. What were all these people doing in a Boots at 9:00pm?

He’d finally texted Mary, just saying that he’d be spending the night at Baker Street and that they should have a talk in the morning. She hadn’t texted back, and he’d felt a pang of worry. He didn’t hate her, after all. Wanted to make sure she was alright, especially after she’d driven off in a strop earlier. He texted again, just asking her to confirm she was alright, and she’d texted back a terse yes. Well, he had to expect her to be angry. He’d just have to deal with it tomorrow. The rest of tonight was about him and Sherlock.

The shopping basket in his hands made him laugh every time he looked in it; condoms, lubricant, milk, biscuits, canned custard, crisps, and coffee. It looked like he was planning to do nothing but fuck and eat junk food, which was actually startlingly accurate.

A scene from earlier in the day drifted into his mind; Sherlock’s face in his neck, his vision completely obscured by black curls, Sherlock’s hand between his legs, rubbing and pulling gently, murmuring ‘It’s only ever been you, just you, John, only you…” over and over again.

Shit. His face was turning red. He had to stop that particular train of thought.

He shuffled forward as the queue moved, and the phone in his jacket buzzed. Setting the basket on the floor between his feet, he pulled it out, and laughed. Sherlock was the most impatient git on the planet.

_Where ARE you? SH_   
_The queue is long. I’ll be home soon._   
_I’m bo-ored...SH_   
_I’ll occupy you quickly once I get back._   
_I can’t wait. SH_   
_Good._   
_Hurry, John. SH_   
_You are such a whinging baby sometimes._   
_You like it. SH_   
_I do not. I’m going now, it’s my turn._   
_I’m waiting...SH_

As he slipped his phone back into his jacket, he was sure the smile on his face could power half of London in its brightness.

***

“I’m back!” John flung the door to Baker Street open, forgetting about bothering Mrs Hudson, and took the steps two at a time.

He walked into the flat and almost fainted. Sherlock had lit every candle he could find, apparently. There were candles on every flat surface, bathing the every room in a wavering light, casting shimmering shadows against the wallpaper. It was beautiful.

John wandered open mouthed through the sitting room, and the kitchen, back into the bedroom. Sherlock had never done anything overtly romantic before. No one had ever done anything this romantic for John before. He felt cherished, wrapped in Sherlock’s affection, surrounded by it.

He pushed open the bedroom door, expecting to see Sherlock laying across the bed, but he wasn’t there. Only one place left for him to be.

John pushed open the door to the bathroom, nearly kicking over a line of candles across the floor. There was Sherlock, reclining in a steaming bath, eyes closed, his hair in wet tendrils around his eyes. In the dim light, he looked like a marble statue.

“Hey, you gorgeous thing. What’s all this then?” John said quietly, his heart near to bursting with love and fondness. How he could have ever imagined loving someone else was beyond his understanding. He dropped the bag and sank to the edge of the tub, dragged his fingers through the surface of the water, his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s.

Sherlock’s voice was low and soft, his eyes affectionate, “Just seemed like the way to end the day...Aren’t you going to join me?”

“Yeah, of course. It’s perfect.” John grinned as he stood up to undress, something sweet and lovely expanding through his chest. This Sherlock was only for him. Other people could have his brain, but his heart, this amazing, huge heart...that was only for John.

Sherlock’s eyes followed his every movement as he peeled off his clothes and dropped them to the floor. He met John’s gaze with undisguised lust. “God you’re perfect, John. Every part of you.”

“Glad you approve.” Sherlock’s legs fell open and he beckoned John over. John slipped slowly between his legs, into the hot, fragrant water, and spun so they were chest to chest. “This is very romantic.”

“It’s meant to be.” Sherlock murmured, pressing his lips against John’s forehead. “I got bored when you were out. This seemed like a worthy activity.”

“Yeah, well, I think you were right.” The water was hot, sloshing against John’s shoulder blades as he pushed up to meet Sherlock’s mouth with his own. Their lips parted willingly to each other, the kiss slow and lazy. Lips dragging, tongues slipping against each other gently. The heat between them grew, and the kiss turned into a sweet tangle of tongues, Sherlock’s hand gripping the back of John’s head as they breathed each other’s air with quick little pants. John felt Sherlock getting hard, pressing against his stomach. He smiled into the kiss and slid a hand down to wrap around his cock.

Sherlock groaned and let his head fall back. He wriggled his hips a little and breathed hard through wet lips. “I will never get tired of your hands on me, John...god, never.”

“You better not.” John rolled his wrist, pulled up gently, twisting his hand at the head in a way that made Sherlock’s hips stutter. “Because I will _never_ , _ever_ get sick of touching you, you beautiful creature. God, how I had missed this. Us.”

“John, I missed you so much I felt like I was suffocating.” Sherlock’s fingers dug harder into John’s head, his lips brushing over John’s in not-quite-a-kiss. “I was just waiting for you to come home to me.”

“I know. I was, too.” Choked with emotion, John captured Sherlock’s lips with his own and wrapped both his arms around Sherlock’s back. They sank down into the bath, water splashing over the edge onto the floor. Two of the nearest candles went out with a sizzle, the light in the room dimming even further.

Their cocks slid together, the touch of soft skin, already oversensitive from a day of making love, sending both of them into cascades of moans and gasps. John mouthed his way under Sherlock’s jaw, tasting stubbly skin, soap, sweat. “I love you. That’s not enough, that’s so fucking inadequate, but I’m not...you know...I can’t say it better. I just love you, Sherlock. And I will, forever. I promise.”

“I know. You said it just fine, John. I know.” Sherlock raked his fingernails gently up John’s back and ducked his head to kiss his shoulder tenderly, the warmth of a hundred candles in those lips pressed to smooth freckled skin. “Turn around. I’ll wash your hair.”

John spun and sat up. Strong hands, flat palms, grazed up his back, massaging gently with calloused fingertips. Sherlock’s lips followed his hands, sweeping over the freckles and scars on John’s back reverentially. John’s eyes fell closed, wanting to shut out everything but the sensation of Sherlock’s mouth and hands on him.

A fall of hot water washed over the back of his head and ears, he heard the click of the shampoo bottle, the scent of it wafting past him in the moment before Sherlock’s hands were gently working it into his hair. He relaxed forward, chest almost parallel with the water and breathed in deeply.

Hypnotised. By the heady fragrance of the water, the foggy heat of the room, Sherlock’s rhythmic massaging of his scalp. He felt suddenly drowsy and thick, as though he could lean right back against the comforting plane of Sherlock’s chest and go to sleep.

Warm water fell over him again, Sherlock’s hand smoothing back his hair, squeezing the soap out. He did it over and over, with the same tempo, the same rhythm, and John felt himself almost swaying with it.

“Okay. All the shampoo’s out.” Sherlock pressed his chest to John’s back and wrapped his arms around him, his lips just below John’s ear. His voice was low and sultry, lips grazing John’s earlobe, “Let’s go to bed now…”

“I might fall asleep, I’m so relaxed now.” John’s leaned back into Sherlock’s embrace, and wrapped his hands around Sherlock’s forearms. “That was lovely.”

“Mmmmm…” Nudging his nose against John’s ear, his licked gently at the lobe, and then around the helix. “I won’t let you fall asleep, John.”

Despite his sleepiness, a rumble of desire stirred in John’s belly. Sherlock knew every sensitive place on his body, knew innately exactly how to touch him. Sherlock’s hand slid down his stomach, his fingers trailing through curly brown hair. John arched a little against Sherlock’s chest, a quick huff of breath escaping him.

“You want that, John? You want me to wrap my fingers around you, pull your foreskin up and back, squeeze you until you come?” Sherlock’s voice was hoarse, his fingers searching, pressing into the groove between thigh and groin.

John’s breath caught in his lungs, as his hips hitched up automatically. “No, no...I mean, I do...but no, I want to go to bed and I want to just kind of take it really slow. And then I want to fall asleep in your arms and wake up tomorrow morning and know that I will get to do that every single day for the rest of my life. Let’s do that.”

“Alright, John. Let’s do that.” Sherlock pressed his lips against the nape of John’s neck, and pushed himself up.

He stepped out and pulled John with him. He wrapped a towel his own waist and then another around John’s shoulders and began rubbing him dry.

John laughed. “You don’t have to dry me off, too.”

Sherlock’s eyes were big and black in the dim room. His affection was laid so bare, John’s chest hurt. “But I want to. You take care of me, you always have. Sometimes it’s nice to feel like I do the same for you. Just let me. Please.”

“Alright, love.” John reached up and brushed his knuckles over Sherlock’s cheekbone. “Alright.”

Sherlock finished drying John off, gently rubbing his entire body. The backs of his knees, the hollows of his hips, his fingers...Sherlock ran the towel gently over every inch of him, and finally scrubbed his hair with a grin and a kiss pressed to the end of his nose. “You’re done.”

“Well, let’s get in bed, then.” Still feeling nearly intoxicated with a combination of sleepiness and love, John tugged Sherlock into the bedroom and pushed him down gently until he was face down across the bed with his arms hanging over the far edge. “Now...where was I before I left? Oh, I remember…”

He hooked his fingers in Sherlock’s towel. “Lift your hips up, lovely. That’s it.”

Sherlock was already breathing harder as John slipped his towel off of him. His still wet skin glistened and shone, John climbed on the bed, straddling Sherlock’s legs. He ran his hands slowly down Sherlock’s back, watching each ripple of skin and twitch of muscle. “You’re so beautiful. I thought that the very first time I saw you. Standing in that lab, bent over the microscope...you took my breath away.”

Sherlock hummed happily and wriggled, a soft smile lighting his face.

John bent and kissed his shoulder, his spine, softly and carefully placed kisses all over Sherlock’s back. He shimmied down Sherlock’s legs until he was nearly off the bed, and put his lips to the perfect curve of Sherlock’s spine right above his arse. Sherlock curled back, his shoulders rising off the mattress, and sighed deeply. John smiled, knowing he’d have him writhing in minutes.

“I think I was right….here.” Closed mouth to the perfect rise of Sherlock’s right arse cheek, and he shivered under John, twitched. “Oh, did you like that?”

“You know I do.” Sherlock grumbled affectionately, half his face buried in the pillows.

“Mmmm….how about this, then?” Opened mouth, soft lips and flicking tongue against Sherlock’s bath-warm skin, smelling of cinnamon and vanilla. Muscles tightening under John’s tongue, Sherlock groaned and pushed back into the kiss.

Teeth scraped, just shy of a bite, and Sherlock rolled his head, groaning, buried his face in his arm. John bit him then, teeth sinking into soft flesh, hard enough to hurt a little.

Sherlock’s back curved completely concave as he gripped into the rumpled sheets and moaned deep in his throat. “Oh, John...John, yes, please…”

“You want it, again…you want it, you’re going to have to...let me just...” John licked and bit his way across Sherlock’s arse, wrapping his fingers around his hipbones and pulling him up. Sherlock took the cue and shifted so his knees were bent and he was exposed to John’s mouth. “Oh, god, baby, you’re still so open, Jesus, that’s hot.”

“Well, you’ve had intercourse with me four times today, so…” The breathiness of Sherlock’s voice belied the bored exasperation he was trying to convey.

“Yeah, and I’m about to again, you little smart mouth.” John smacked his hip lightly, “But first I’m going to eat you until you’re _shaking_. I’m going to put my tongue right...here…”

Sherlock let out a bed rattling groan, his head falling back and then forward, forehead rubbing into the sheets, as John flicked his tongue over Sherlock’s beautifully open entrance. Sherlock gasped and quivered, a string of nonsensical words falling from his lips.

“What was that, Sherlock? Didn’t quite catch it.”

“Isaidohmyfuckinggodthatfeelsgood…” Sherlock slurred out, his back curving as he fixed his eyes on John. “Don’t.stop.”

“Oh, I don’t plan to.” John lowered his face again, licking Sherlock with a wide flattened tongue, feeling every shiver through his hot skin. The intimacy of this was incredible. John could never get enough of it, the taste of Sherlock in his mouth, the feeling of every infinitesimal flutter of Sherlock’s muscles reverberating through his tongue and down his neck. He’d almost come from this, just the act of doing it to Sherlock, so many times. He felt it now, his belly tightening, a delicious heat crawling down his spine. It was intoxicating to see Sherlock like this, to know he’d made him feel this way.

John’s tongue delved deeper, exploring, and Sherlock cried out like a cat, clawing at the edges of the mattress, his knuckles whitening. John started moving faster, snaking the tip of his tongue down to press into Sherlock’s perineum, and then quickly lapping back up over his opening. He sucked and kissed, using his mouth every way he knew how to bring Sherlock right to the edge. He rubbed his hands up Sherlock’s sides, dragged his fingers back down to grip his hips, and buried his face closer, delving, twisting and curling the tip of his tongue in waves of constant movement. Sherlock’s muscles contracted around his tongue, and his hips jutted forward as his unceasing moaning got louder. John sucked , pulling skin into his mouth and darted his tongue inward at the same time. Sherlock was beside himself, nearly sobbing, biting into his arm. His thighs were shaking, his toes flexing and digging into the mattress.

“Oh John, oh my god,” he panted, reaching an arm back to tangle his fingers in John’s hair. “That’s incredible…”

John paused, his mouth still against Sherlock’s wet skin. “You’re going to come like this. Just from this. My tongue inside you, and on you, and then I’m going to fuck you so good, baby, you’ll wish you could come again.”

“YesJohnyespleaseohgodmakemecomeplease,” Sherlock’s speech often became incredibly fast and incredibly slurred when he was close. John found it absurdly endearing.

His tongue was starting to ache. He needed to make him come soon. Now.

Sherlock was so wet and open and John was nearly on the verge of coming himself, just looking at that opening that had been stretched by his cock, this most vulnerable part of Sherlock’s body that John was allowed to have, to savour, to thrust into and taste and come inside of. He traced the edge with his finger, and then plunged two fingers deep inside the breathtaking heat of Sherlock’s body. He crooked them, finding Sherlock's prostate easily, the rough nub that sent Sherlock thrashing in a matter of seconds, his legs nearly giving out as his whimpered and begged to come. _Please, John, please._

He lowered his mouth beside his fingers, and licked a striped down to Sherlock’s perineum, lapped at the back of his testicles. Sherlock’s cock hung flushed and throbbing, untouched, between his legs. The sight of it made John’s cock jump in sympathy. One more thrust of his fingers and a gentle suckle, a hum, the vibration of his lips against soft skin, and Sherlock bucked, letting out a long groan that John felt on his tongue. He clenched around John’s fingers and shook, and John watched as his cock spilled milky white over the sheets. God, he wanted to taste it, taste Sherlock in his mouth, spreading across his palate and down his throat. It was painful to not be able to share that with each other as they’d always done.

After the last pulse ended, John kissed slowly up Sherlock’s back. His skin felt fevered, peppered with beads of sweat, shivering under John’s lips. “That was beautiful, baby, so beautiful. Watching you come is like a fucking religious experience.”

“Mmmm…” Sherlock was still curled on his knees, rocking slightly, eyes closed. “That was...amazing.”

“You were amazing. I could do that all day.” John laid down next to Sherlock, his own erection bobbing. He ignored it.

“Still tired, John?” Sherlock grinned without opening his eyes, those beautiful black lashes fluttering against his ruddy cheeks, his lips bloomed red with arousal.

John rolled to his side, took Sherlock’s face between his hands, and kissed him fiercely. “Not a bit.”

“Told you.” Sherlock laughed into John’s mouth, and he swallowed it down, as if it was something he could keep inside of him. He wanted to. To keep all of Sherlock’s fragility and tenderness inside him, not let him ever be hurt, not let things like what had happened happen again.

“I’ll not leave you again. Ever.” John sucked Sherlock’s bottom lip, stroked his fingers up his neck.

“I know that. I know.” Then suddenly Sherlock’s tongue was in John’s mouth and their hands were skimming through each other’s hair, Sherlock was throwing a leg over John’s hip and their breath was quickening.

I love you’s were whispered, hoarse and affectionate. Sherlock sucked John’s earlobe, murmuring, “I want you inside me, John. Please, right now.”

John groaned, “God, I want to come inside you. Fucking condoms.”

Sherlock snuggled closer, trailing a finger down John’s neck and over his collarbones. He mouthed wet kisses down John’s jaw, kisses that burned like fire. John was woozy, arousal pooling all the blood in his belly and groin.

Sherlock whispered against the side of John’s face, “You love to watch your come leaking out of me, don’t you?”

“Oh, fuck, Sherlock, god, yes I do…” John’s head spun, blood coursing through him like wildfire.

“I’ve felt you before, dragging your finger through the drips, putting it back in...I love it. I love your come inside me. I love how it makes my pants wet the next day, seeping out of me. It smells like you, like a part of you. I love it rolling down my legs…” Sherlock’s voice was somehow an octave deeper than it had ever been before.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Sherlock. Baby, you’re going to make me come just talking to me like this.”

“Well you’d better hurry up and fuck me then, hadn’t you?” Sherlock pushed him backwards do forcefully he almost fell off the bed. He stumbled into the loo, where the Boots bag was still on the floor where he’d dropped it. Fumbling and cursing the need for the condoms, he shredded the cardboard, tearing it away in strips until he could grab the packets and rip one off.

Sherlock stared at him with dark eyes. “How do you want me, John?”

John rolled the condom on and laid on his back. He ran a hand over Sherlock’s arm and hip, pulling at him gently. “I want you to ride me, baby. Get on top of me, come on.”

Sherlock bit his lip, eyes lighting mischievously, and slid his leg over the top of John’s thighs, his hand roaming over John’s chest. He pushed up so his was straddling his hips, and reached back to guide John’s cock into the right position. A frisson of electricity soared through John’s entire body, stomach muscles contracting. He clapped his hands on Sherlock’s thighs, gripping him with sweaty fingers.

Several of the candles had gone out by now, and the room was lit by a deep yellow glow that just barely allowed John to make out Sherlock’s parted lips, the shadows in the hollows under his cheekbones. His grip on Sherlock’s thighs tightened as Sherlock sank down, taking just the head of John’s cock inside his body. He tensed his legs and rose back up.

“Don’t tease me.” John growled.

“I wouldn’t dare.” Sherlock bit his lip and huffed out a breath as he sank all the way down. His eyelashes fluttered as his head fell back with a soft little gasp.

“Oh, fuck, baby, yeah, oh god,” The fact that John had already been inside him four times in one day made no difference in the sweetness of the heat and tightness of Sherlock’s body surrounding his cock. He was completely lightheaded, with arousal and exhaustion. He was going to come in seconds.

Sherlock rocked his hips up and back, biting his lip hard and rolling his head. His cock twitched and his hips jerked. John rolled his hips up to meet Sherlock’s rhythm, and Sherlock groaned loudly, his lips slipping from his teeth as his mouth fell open.

“Harder, baby, faster...oh, fuck, like that, yeah, just like that…” John felt like he was going to pass out. He was breathing so shallowly and quickly, his exhaustion so bone deep, but his whole body was suffused with the pleasure of Sherlock on top of him. His orgasm washed over him like a soft wave, making his arms tremble and his face burn. He heard himself whimpering and murmuring Sherlock’s name, but his ears were filled with cotton.

Sherlock bent over and kissed his eyelids, his nose, his mouth. “I love you.”

“Iloveyoutoo…” John’s eyelids were heavy as concrete. He couldn’t move them. He vaguely felt Sherlock rolling off him, and carefully removing the condom for him. Then the bed was cold for a moment, and he felt immediately lonely.

He must have made some kind of protest, because Sherlock called, “I’ll be right back.”

Then the bed dipped, and Sherlock was there, pulling blankets over them both, curling up to John’s side with his arm over his stomach. John turned into him, their knees interlocking, foreheads resting against each other. Warm fingers drifted down his arm as his consciousness faded, and the last thing he remembered before falling asleep was Sherlock’s fingers twining around his own.

***

The next morning, he woke up to Sherlock shaking his shoulder. “John. John, wake up. Mary’s in jail. She murdered Charles Magnussen last night.”


	7. Epilogue

It was all quite a mess for months after that. Mary wasn’t at all who John had thought she was, and he couldn’t let go of the betrayal. A murderer. A killer for hire. He hadn’t even known her name. It made his infidelity seem utterly inconsequential. Since Mary Morstan didn’t even exist to be cheated on. She was a figment of a sick mind.  

“Thank Christ you didn’t go there that night, Sherlock. God knows what would have happened.” John couldn’t stop saying it. Couldn’t stop thinking about what might have been, after Sherlock told him that Magnussen’s was his destination the night of their reunification.

He murmured it to him in bed, stroking his hands over the planes of Sherlock’s face, pressing his fingertips to his carotid artery, feeling his blood beating strong. _Thank God, thank God…_

Thought it over dinner, watching Sherlock’s long fingers holding a knife so elegantly, buttering his bread. Imagined them still and grey, laying on a hospital sheet. He would grab his hand, making him drop the knife with a clatter, press his lips to Sherlock’s knuckles. _Thank God. I couldn’t lose you again. She would have shot you, Sherlock. If you’d interrupted her. She would have. I know it._

_But I didn’t, John. I was here with you._

_I know, I know._

It plagued him. He had nightmares. He would wake up sweaty, screaming Sherlock’s name in a blind panic, chest heaving. _Shhhh, John, I’m right here. Come here, love, come here, darling,_ Sherlock would whisper. The only time endearments slipped easily from his lips. Sherlock would gather John into his arms tightly, rock him just the littlest bit, until he fell back asleep with Sherlock’s tee shirt clutched in his fists.

Mary went to jail. No country to extradite her to. They couldn’t find out who she was. There was no trace of her anywhere. No matching fingerprints, no DNA hits. They couldn’t torture a pregnant woman, and she probably wouldn’t have talked anyway. A figment. A ghost.

A ghost carrying John’s child.

John never mentioned the child. Finally one night, quiet in the sitting room, Sherlock cleared his throat. John put his book on his knees, knowing something was about to be said that he needed to attend to.

“John. When she comes home, I’d like to adopt her. Formally. Anything that’s a part of you is a part of me. I love her just as much as I love you, and I want to be her father. Properly.” Sherlock nodded, seemingly to himself, and went back to typing.

John looked up at the ceiling, feeling the sob rising in his chest. His hand went over his mouth, holding himself together until he could speak. Then he carefully put his book down, walked over to Sherlock’s chair, and spun him away from the computer screen. He knelt between his thighs and took both of his hands.

Sherlock smiled down at him, eyes sparkling. “Hello.”

“You. You are amazing. You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met in my life, and I knew it the second I saw you. William Sherlock Scott Holmes….marry me. Please.”

Sherlock had the most Sherlock of reactions, sniffing derisively and rolling his eyes. “Well, of course. The only logical thing left to do in our relationship.”

“You prick.” John laughed and stood up, pulling Sherlock with him. “Take me to bed, you amazing creature.”

“I would be honoured to. Husband.” Sherlock cradled John’s face between his hands, stroking his thumbs over his cheeks. “You’re amazing, too, John Watson. Don’t you ever forget it.”

“I’m going to make you write horribly sentimental things in our wedding vows and humiliate yourself in front of everyone we know.” John tucked his hands in the back of Sherlock’s waistband and grinned.

“I would expect no less.” Sherlock swooped in and kissed him, all warm soft lips and gentle tongue, and they stumbled and kissed their way into the bedroom.

***

“We won’t be able to have sex anytime we want anymore.” John murmured into Sherlock’s sweaty chest, his own still heaving from an especially enthusiastic bout.

“I’m sure we’ll find the time.” Sherlock’s voice was sleepy, muffled by John’s hair.

“And we’ll have to make sure we have a reliable sitter for when we need to go out on cases.”

“John. She’s not even born yet. Calm down. We’ll figure it all out.” Sherlock’s fingers trailed up and down his spine. “We always do.”

***

They could have named her anything. Mary was in prison, for the rest of her life, and really had no say in the matter. But John was John, and he wanted to give Mary some kind of part in naming the baby she’d never see again. It seemed only fair.

She chose Agatha. John didn’t ask why, though he suspected it might be her real first name.

He obliged her, and so Agatha Elizabeth Watson was brought home to 221B on a chilly February morning, swaddled in an afghan Sherlock’s mother had knit. Sherlock immediately nicknamed her Aggie, which John didn’t love, but he knew Sherlock couldn’t bear to actually call her the name Mary had given her. Not yet anyway. He would probably relent as the memory of Mary grew more distant. As for himself, John only thought of Agatha as his and Sherlock’s.

She was pink and frighteningly small and had John’s nose. John carried her up the steps, talking to her all the way. “This is your home, sweetheart. One day when you’re bigger, you’ll sleep where Daddy used to sleep, a long time ago. And here’s Papa’s chemistry set. You mustn’t ever touch that…”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and grinned. “You know she can’t understand a word of what you’re saying, John.”

“Yeah, I know, you idiot.” John settled on the sofa with Aggie across his knees. She looked up at him and her eyes went crossed, her small mouth in a tiny ‘o’. He loved her ferociously. He had no idea he would feel this fiercely protective. “It feels right to talk to her, though. You know?”

Sherlock took the seat next to him, and cocked his head at Aggie, taking her in. He nodded to himself. “Yes. It does. She’s one of us now, and we’ll treat her accordingly.”

“Well, we won’t be dragging her to crime scenes. Isn’t that right, sweet pea?” He let her take his finger, tiny delicate fingers wrapping around his pinky. She made a little grunting noise that lodged somewhere in John’s chest, and filled his eyes with tears. He shook his head. “Christ, I feel like I’ve cried more in that last few months than I have in years. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Sherlock looked at him with soft wide eyes and brushed his fingertips over his cheek. He kissed him tenderly. “You’re a romantic, John. You always have been.”

“So are you. This little girl’s going to have her Papa wrapped around her little finger.” He kissed Sherlock back, and they leaned back into the sofa, Aggie against his chest. Sherlock’s arm went round his shoulders and pulled him closer. John let out a long breath. This kind of peace had been a very long time coming.

Sherlock let out a low rumbling laugh, and passed his hand gently over her back. She was so small, his hand covered her entire back and her curled up legs. “Yes, I think she already does.”

The morning sunshine turned grey as the day turned to afternoon. Still they stayed on the sofa, John’s head resting against Sherlock’s shoulder, Aggie’s snuffling squirminess balled up warm and comforting on his chest. A light snow started to fall.

“Sherlock, what on earth are we going to do with her?” John murmured, only half meaning it.

He felt Sherlock shrug. “I don’t know. What do any parents do? The best they can, most of the time. And if sometimes we don’t do the best we can, I’m certain she’ll forgive us.”

“You’re going to teach her all sorts of horrible things by the time she can walk, aren’t you?” John laughed and shifted himself on the sofa. His arse was going numb. Aggie threw her arms out, startled by his sudden movement, and let out a little cry. He jiggled her a bit, patted her back, and she settled.

“Yes, probably. And you’ll take her to ballet lessons and cricket, or whatever sports children play, and we’ll balance out.” Sherlock rested his cheek against the top of John’s head and sighed. “I think we’ll compliment each other quite nicely.”

“We always have.” John tilted his face, pressed his lips against a smooth white cheek. “I love you.”

Sherlock shifted beside him. “I love you, too. I’m going to light the fire, put on the kettle. It’s chilly in here.”

Aggie was sound asleep, but John was loathe to put her down. He thought he could hold her forever and not get tired of it. But he also wanted to go help Sherlock put on some tea. He laid her in the little bassinet Sherlock had spent hours putting together, and watched her little arms twitching, searching for something to anchor her. She started to fuss. He looked round and spotted a basket of stuffed animals. There was a little yellow and white striped bee on top that looked about the right size. He tucked it between her arm and he body and she latched on to it, face relaxing.

“Alright, sweet pea, Daddy will be right back. I’m going to go see what your Papa’s got up to.” Saying that - your Papa - something John had never imagined he’d be saying about Sherlock, it filled up a space in John he hadn’t even known needed filling.

Sherlock was pulling cups out of the cupboard when John walked into the kitchen. John just watched him, thinking of all they’d been through together, the long weary road they’d taken to get here. Sherlock felt his eyes on him, turned, two teacups in his hands. “What?”

John shrugged. “Put the teacups down.”

“Alright.” Sherlock sounded suspicious, but did it.

“Come here.” John wrapped both arms around Sherlock as tightly as could, laid his head against his chest. “You’re going to be a wonderful father, you know that?”

“I sincerely hope so, John. I never imagined this could be a life I would have.” Sherlock’s fingers twined through John’s hair. “But I now can’t imagine how else it could have been.”

“I’m just so grateful we made it. We almost didn’t. We were so far apart.” John tightened his arms around Sherlock’s waist, squeezing until there was no space left between them.

“That’s not true. We’d always have ended up together, somehow or another.” Sherlock’s arms slipped down around John, too, and they stood there just holding each other until the kettle screamed.

***

_six months later_

John woke up in a quiet dark bedroom. He felt more well rested than it seemed like he should. He stretched, and realised Sherlock wasn’t beside him. Baby monitor was turned off. Ah. 

Aggie was a horrible sleeper. They’d been told by everyone - the pediatrician, Sherlock’s mum, friendly mothers at the play park who saw them with baggy eyes and habitually yawning - that it would pass. That some babies were just like that. That in a year, it would seem like a bad dream.

He swung his feet out of bed and padded through the kitchen, stopped in the doorway with his arms folded across his bare chest, pyjama bottoms hanging round his hips.

Sherlock was standing silhouetted in front of the window, swaying back and forth rhythmically, humming something by Brahms. The room was dark, lit only by the streetlamps and the flickering embers in the fireplace. It was a cool night for July, and Aggie was fascinated watching the firelight, so they’d lit it. Sherlock had her high up on his chest, her head on his shoulder, one chubby arm wrapped around his neck. She was making little sleepy sounds and clutching her now ragged stuffed bee.

Sherlock turned, no doubt feeling John’s eyes on him. He held a finger to his lips and smiled.

There they were, the two people he loved most in the world, the two people he couldn’t live without. Sherlock turned back around, rocking his hips gently, rubbing Aggie’s back, looking out the window into the summer night. John rustled quietly up behind him, kissed the downy top of Aggie’s head, and slid his arms around Sherlock’s waist.

“You should have woken me.” He whispered.

“No. I don’t mind. You needed to sleep, and Aggie and I are night owls.”

John chuckled softly against Sherlock’s back. “You two. Two peas in a pod.”

And they were. She had much more of Sherlock’s temperament than John’s.

“Go back to bed, John. We’re fine.” One hand slipped down to cover John’s on his belly. John laced their fingers together.

“You know I just keep falling in love with you. Every day, I just fall in love with you all over again. I don’t know how you manage it.”

Sherlock didn’t say anything, just squeezed his fingers. John pressed a kiss to his shoulder and ran his finger down Aggie’s arm. John retreated to the kitchen, casting one last glance at Sherlock holding their daughter.

“Alright, I’ll leave you two to it. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, John.”

Later, when Sherlock slipped back into the bedroom after putting Aggie to sleep upstairs, John woke just enough to see his silhouette in the doorway. Sherlock laid down beside him and flicked the baby monitor on. John spooned up behind him, and flung an arm over his waist. Sherlock caught his hand, threading their fingers together, and covering their joined hands with his other one.

“It all started this way, remember?” John whispered, lips moving against Sherlock’s neck.

Sherlock squeezed his hand. “Of course I do. _Can I stay here, John? Please?_ ”

John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s hair. “Forever.”  


End file.
